Culture

It’s easy to see TV talent shows as three-ring circuses of cheap emotion,  empty promises and bitter tears - but they have their bad points, too. While I can appreciate a dancing dog or knife-throwing nutter as much as the next man, surely only a sadist could contemplate the new Saturday evening smorgasbord of stultifying mediocrity - Let It Shine (BBC1) followed by The Voice (ITV) - with anything but sorrow. TV talent shows can be seen as a righteous reaction to the relentless tsunami of nepotism which now drenches the entertainment industry - traditionally one of the very few escape routes for sparky working-class kids too pretty for a life of crime.

Think of the scandals of the last two decades; think of who exposed them. That’s why we need to protect press freedom and why, if you haven’t already done so, you should email to register your objection to the notorious Section 40 of the Crime & Courts Act. The consultation ends at 5pm tomorrow. If activated, it would mean that publications who refuse to bend the knee to a state-sponsored regulator would pay the legal costs of anyone who sues them – right or wrong. When Tim Yeo was exposed by the Sunday Times, he sued – even though every word of their exposé was correct. The newspaper fought him because under the basic laws of justice, if the complainant is proved to be wrong, you don’t pay a thing.

Welcome to 2017! And eight days in, it’s time for one of those apologies again. You know, the cringing acts of self-abasement issued in order to save someone’s job and for which there was no need whatsoever. Northampton Town got well and truly stuffed by Bristol Rovers on Saturday. Five nil. And Bristol Rovers aren’t much to write home about – even Charlton hammered them. So Northampton manager Rob Page was incensed. He lambasted his team at half time and later said that it had been a case of 'men against girls'. Yup. You know what’s coming. Here’s his apology: 'After the match I made a comment, when speaking to our local media, about the game being a case of "men against girls". 'I immediately realised that this comment was totally unacceptable.

One should not speak ill of the dead, but if their flaws or vices are glossed over that is also problematic. George Michael was admirable in some ways, especially for his quiet charitable donations, but less so in others. I don’t see why his penchant for anonymous sexual encounters should be politely passed over, or treated as a harmless lifestyle choice. He ‘loved anonymous sex’, said Owen Jones in the Guardian - as if fondly recalling someone’s love for opera or snooker. Jones and others will doubtless say it is homophobic to moralise about this.

There are few terms in the English language as irritating as ‘eco-village’ – which is really just ‘housing estate’ dressed up to sound more acceptable to Nimbys. Nevertheless, today’s announcement of 14 such 'garden villages' should be welcomed. Concentrating new homes in purpose-built new towns, villages and suburbs, where services and infrastructure are built as part of the development, upsets people who live nearby but ultimately it is the least painful way of accommodating the new homes which are so desperately needed. And this time, please, can we please get the bulldozers rolling. For years, George Osborne used to talk about new towns.

Lynn Faulds Wood, former presenter of BBC’s Watchdog, says she turned down an MBE because she 'just wouldn’t accept it while we still have party donors donating huge amounts of money and getting an honour'. Any self-respecting political donor will equally have rejected an honour on the grounds that it demeans the system to have them handed out to every Tom, Dick and Harry who appears on radio and television. Honours have become a debased currency. This time around, 1197 of them have been handed out. There will be another pile in the summer with the Queen’s birthday honours. Carry on like this and there won’t be anyone on the outside of prison who doesn’t have an honour.

Boxing Day is the one day of the year when people really come out en masse to support their local hunts. Over a quarter of a million people are expected to show their support wherever the meet may be – in town centres, country pubs or the local stately home. It won’t just be hunt supporters going out, though. Twelve years after the Hunting Act, hunt saboteurs will be out in force as well. This is despite the fact that in the past two years, no registered hunts have been prosecuted under the Act. Surely, many people would argue, this means that hunts are sticking to the law, making hunt saboteurs redundant? But this doesn’t seem to be the case.

At my local carol concert this week, I couldn’t help but despair at the state of the singing. It was just so dire. And it got me thinking: is the same dreadful crooning taking place at churches and carol concerts up and down the country? Are the tone-deaf spoiling age-old songs elsewhere too? If so, it's a worrying indictment of just how bad British singing has become. Fortunately, when I was growing up I was always in choirs. Being in the Gluck glitterati, I lived a sheltered life, hidden from the tone deaf and silent myriad. There was never a sermon too dull, or wedding too icky, when I was exposed to the hymn belters.