Piers Pressure

It's not a particularly original observation to point out what a revolting pissbrain Piers Morgan is, the man who was sacked for publishing faked army abuse photos in the Mirror and who has somehow kept his gollum-like talons on the throat of showbiz through various talent shows and now a chat show where he pedals a tabloid-inspired agenda to his guests.

Yet last week his interview with Ronnie Corbett, one of my all-time favourite comedians, was a new low even by Morgan's standards. He spent a whole 15 minute section on one point: Corbett never says 'I love to' to his wife, and instead they display their affection through actions not words. It's clearly a very personal and special way of communicating, and it's not for the outside world to get involved in this private aspect of his life. However, Piers, being the cheap sentimental hack he is, asked the same questions over and over about it, and then demanded that Ronnie say 'I love you' on camera to his wife for the sake of his viewing figures. Ronnie was understandably reluctant - this was a private thing, this wasn't how they communicated, and it's not what he does. Still, Morgan wouldn't take no for an answer and in the end Ronnie gave up and told his wife he loved her, and promptly wept.

Morgan got exactly what he wanted, the money shot, through cajoling his guest into submission. It was interesting to watch – for much of the media this is how journalism works. But it's usually a hidden process. The journalist can recount the events without revealing the manipulative lengths they went to make their interviewee lose it in some way. Watching Piers do this in front of the cameras was revolting. The man has no shame, and no respect for his guests, just an eye for the mechanics of a popular story no matter the cost, and the tricks to make an unwary elderly performer break down in front of the camera for nothing more than a cheap thrill.

The Bleedin' Obvious

Gosh. No. Really? I am surprised.

I can't abide Britain's Got Talent, a show for people who have never considered that singing or dancing isn't just the preserve of the cosmetically pimped. Or Parky, what a terrible chat show host he was for all but his own coterie of showbiz mates, a man who usually just asked the most obvious of questions to receive the dullest of replies. He'd been coasting on those Mohammed Ali and Billy Connolly interviews for a long time. Funny, he doesn't ever mention his Damned Utd stint at TVAM when he, Angela Rippon, Anna Ford and a couple of other charmless bores, a kind of even less successful SDP, were hastily vanquished by Frank Bough and efficiently replaced by Anne Diamond and a glove puppet.

Worst of all, Question Time. If I can't be bothered to watch members of the public teach their dog the rumba on BGT, I'm certainly not going to be gripped by the thought of watching angry teachers from Burton On Trent try to get one over on media trained fucktards trapped in an escalating spiral of hand-wringing me tooism. This week it should have been satisfying watching MPs squirm as they were resoundingly bollocked about their expenses, but Margaret Beckett and Ming Campbell have for many years been their parties fall guys, sent on to grovel in their own shit for the pleasure of Paxman or a Dimbleby. Seeing them at it again while all of those real bastards, the grey wardrobe-skinned nonentities we'd never heard of but were happy for us to pay for essential moat cleaning or porn, toughed it out in Westminster clubs, no doubt watching Ming and Margaret on a plasma screen through a haze of G&Ts as they struggled through their usual duet, Islands in the Shit Stream.

Interesting comment from soon to retire Tonight host Jay Leno: 'I like CSI and SVU and Law & Order, but there isn't any comedy. When I was a kid, you'd have a whole night of comedy. Now it's all very serious, it's all murder'. It's the legacy of George Bush, I guess, a fucked-up country gets fucked-up drama. This is also possibly why I've given up following American series, and why the new Star Trek film is so endearing: they've not done the now obligatory 'dark' reboot, but have instead made something lighter, funnier and more entertainng than the original. Now there's a thought.