Reality tv

Thursday

James Delingpole

Don’t sneer at I’m a Celebrity. The show is teaching us to become model citizens

From our UK edition

One of the great benefits of having teenage children is that they force you out of your fuddy-duddy comfort zone. There was no way, for example, that the Fawn and I were ever going voluntarily to watch I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! because we’re snobby old farts who only like history documentaries and University Challenge. But Girl decreed otherwise. That’s why, unlike many of you, but like most of the nation, I am now able to comment knowledgably on how well Michael Buerk is doing, who Tinchy Stryder is, why it was a sensible idea to choose world superbike champion Carl Fogarty to undertake the first bushtucker trial, and why Melanie Sykes is currently Britain’s favourite Milf. You think you don’t need to know this trivia?

Thursday

Dot Wordsworth

Does Joey Essex know what ‘reem’ actually means?

From our UK edition

Joey Essex is a celebrity who appeared in the ‘scripted reality’ programme The Only Way is Essex, named not after him but the well-known county. He is 24, born in Southwark, and his main attractions are good looks, cheerfulness and stupidity. He claims never to have learnt to tell the time or to blow his nose. Now he has published a book called Being Reem. Reem is one of the slang words he has popularised. On a chat show he seemed not to remember what they all meant, but that might have been part of the act. Indeed I wonder if he is not having a laugh on us with the title of his book. To Joey Essex, reem means ‘brilliant, good, cool, fashionable’. Could reem really derive from ream?

Toby Young

Pity I’m a Celebrity’s token old guys

From our UK edition

I had thought that my days of being approached by reality show producers hoping to put together a cast of D-list celebrities were behind me. Apparently not. A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by the makers of The Jump, a Channel 4 programme in which assorted ‘personalities’ try their hands at various Alpine sports, including downhill slalom, bobsleigh racing and ski-jumping. I’d never heard of it, but it sounded like fun so I told my agent to set up a meeting. I thought the reason I must be back on the reality show radar was because I’ve published a book this year. Then, when I watched the first episode of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here, I realised what was going on.

Thursday

Olivia Glazebrook

ITV’s Food Glorious Food is under the curse of Simon Cowell

From our UK edition

I sometimes worry that ITV — the middle child — doesn’t get enough of my attention and so this week I have decided to redress the balance: I devoted myself to episode one of Food Glorious Food (Wednesday, ITV). It’s a nine-part quest, hosted by Carol Vorderman, which aims to discover ‘Britain’s best-loved recipe’. O jubilate deo! This is how it goes: treasured family recipes are cooked up at regional events and tasted by one of four judges who choose a favourite and submit it to be tasted by the other three. The judges are Loyd Grossman (smooth), Anne Harrison (stern), Stacie Stewart (bubbly) or Tom Parker Bowles (apologetic).