Friday 5 January 2007

The Jeremy Kyle Show: every day... for eternity

I happened to catch a few episodes of the Jeremy Kyle Show before I went back to work and was genuinely appalled. Both the guests and the audience looked like freakish extras, made up to look exageratedly ugly or chavvy. I struggled to believe some of these were real people (and let's be honest, the stories could be made up, but the heroin-rotted teeth of someone who's about 18 and looks 40-odd tell their own story).
I remember Jeremy himself from his 'late night love' days... we could only tune into Virgin radio on the £9.99 plastic fish radio in the bathroom, so we were often stuck listening to him peddling his cliche-ridden, shouty advice whilst trying to have a romantic bath. I often wondered why people continuously called him to be told they were a drunk, or a loose woman, or a bad father.
On TV he looks exactly as you'd expect, King of the Frogs, bog-eyed, frowny brow, still small, still claiming to not be sitting in an 'ivory tower' whilst telling people with hopeless, cashless lives to be more like him. I marvel at how no one can have lamped him before now.
The daytime TV diet of infidelity interspersed with debt, debt and more debt leads to a worthless, grubby feeling, even if you're just on your holidays. For people who get up and sit through Trisha, Jeremy, Ricky, Jerry day after day, there must seem like no future at all, no way out. It's no wonder the wife's best friend or another line looks appealing.
Like it or not, Kyle is no better than a pimp or dealer. He peddles abuse, affairs, anger. Trisha is equally culpable with her faux-caring veneer, her lick of gloss on top of the misery.
You too could borrow £30,000 pounds. There is a light at the end of that tunnel.
Just go kill yourself.

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