Crazy talk

I swear, the world has gone mad.

Let's look at the evidence.

Kerry Katona, despite being a pudgy crack-whore (how does she do that? what's her secret? Is she mainlining golden syrup on the side?) who has recently been shopped to social services after being outed by her own mother in the tabloid press, and who is about to marry a thieving drug dealer, is still the advertisers' favourite; touting happy, wholesome festive fare from Britain's favourite, ahem, budget frozen food store. I mean, if the sight of a pikey scouse junkie isn't enough to tempt you into a bulk purchase of Iceland's famous king prawn rings, you must surely have a stone for a heart.

My six year old daughter has accepted Jesus into her life. I learned this from the Ex who, on delivering her home on Sunday after the christmas party at the British Legion (don't ask), whispered conspiratorially "we've failed as parents" and informed me, between horrified giggles, that Small Person had had quite the chat with Grandma over the weekend. Apparently, she (Small Person) has taken to buying bible story books from jumble sales and hiding them under Grandma's spare bed. She also, um, prays on the toilet, as she "can't do it in her room as Mummy or Daddy don't believe in it". For want of a better phrase, good lord! What the hell? So, on Sunday night, I had to have a cuddly chat in which I explained, through gritted teeth, that her beliefs were her own affair but that she could of course discuss them with any of us whenever she wanted. Oh, and that maybe her bedroom might be more comfortable if she felt a spot of praying coming on. We're doing the facts of life next week. Spare me.

You can't watch TV for more than five seconds these days without being accosted by adverts for the current christmas advertising wet dream, namely the DVD game thing. It's everywhere! From the more, um , mainstream offerings of Trivial Pursuit and Who Wants to Win Thirty-Two Thousand Pounds, to the slightly more random joys of Richard and Judy's You Say We Pay, which, despite retaining the moronic on-screen presence of two third-rate presenters fluffing difficult clues such as "it's round!", "it's orange!", "it's an fruit!" and the hapless contestant (in the home version I presume this gap is filled by a Mad Auntie after a fair crack at the port and lemon) determinedly getting it wrong, fundamentally fails to fulfil the "We Pay" part of the bargain. Rubbish. See also the oddly-marketed Michael Barrymore DVD game, which blithely ignores said "entertainer"'s status as potential witness in a still-unexplained death-in-the-swimming-pool-at-a-drug-filled-party enquiry, and instead urges you to invite the man in question into your living room to really hammer home the fun of a good old knees-up.

Still, soon be christmas, eh? Eh? Bollocks.