Deal Or No Deal

 

And so begins another edition of my favourite display of greed and pomposity.

It starts with the intrusive Edmonds positioned unbearably close to the camera as he waffles his way through his usual introductory repertoire, something about identical boxes and there only being one question – ‘deal or no deal’. It is this final line which he painfully attempts to deliver with different accentuation every time, complete with dramatic pauses. There are however, only so many ways you can say four words before it just sounds plain demented, and more often than not it does – “deal! Or? … No… DEAL?”

And cue the music. The blaring din which sounds like the same kind of Casio keyboard nonsense shat out for the Paul O’ Grady and Richard and Judy shows. I’d happily bet that it’s the work of a zombie, who seemingly does the theme tune for everything Channel 4 coughs up between three and six in the afternoon. I’m sure I could find out who is to blame if I really gave a monkey’s.

During the show, Edmonds slopes about the floor with doodles on his hand as though he is God’s gift to entertainment. The fact is, he wants a fucking good kicking.

He oozes a smugness that Craig David would be proud of, always with a different colourful shirt tucked pristinely into trouser. The shirts smack of Edmonds’ wanton desire to be seen as some kind of playful extrovert, when really he’s profoundly dull. He must have an entire house full of those arsing shirts.

Edmonds (get a haircut) tries to dupe us into thinking that every game is unique. Well I’m sorry Noel, me old cock-germ, but you ain’t fooling me. Each game may differ slightly I’ll grant you that, but not in the way that you’re suggesting, you lying prick. Fingerprints are all different, but they’re all located on the end of a fucking finger.

The desperation of the man to see this show reach cult status is apparent with the insertion of certain mawkish expressions such as ‘The Crazy Chair’ (the player’s seat) and ‘The Power Five’ (the largest sums of money available), but within the uttering of these phrases also lies Edmonds’ reckless attempts to appear cool. It’s only a matter of time before he’s saying ‘far out’ or ‘cosmic’.

It has to be said that people scare me and given that the contestants are supposedly your average Brit, I can officially announce that our country is full of dangerous tossers. Who are these fuckers and which sorry corner of our country are these pointless rectums normally holed up in?

It has become a trend for the chosen contestant to say “its fine, it’s ok” when they lose £35,000 or whatever, the way I would if I dropped 2p on the pavement and decide to leave it there because it’s barely worth bending down to pick up. Then they pace the floor and meaninglessly yell “Come on!” which seems to whip the audience up into a frenzy every time. If these people are representative of the peak of human evolution as we know it, then please; stop the world, I must get off.

But it’s not just the over-excited contestants (and fellow panellists) that concern me here. Who are the audience? Why are they there? Who are these people that care so much about the financial gain or shortcomings of others? Would you really care whether or not a complete stranger pockets a quarter of a million quid? I try hard not to watch this utter shite but I know when I’ve seen it in the past I am more eager to see them go home with 1p.

Incidentally, I have never met anyone who would waste their time sitting in on a show like this, or any show for that matter, with the exception of something genuinely entertaining such as a comedy product. The audience must consist of the same kind of pond-life that make up the audiences for shows like the National Lottery Draw and ‘Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?’ and so on.

I could go on and on about how Deal Or No Deal winds me up, but I think that’s an aneurism I feel brewing. I will say this though; I would rather watch Bill Oddie looking for badgers than sit through another episode of this toilet juice, although conversely, I would rather stab myself repeatedly in the chest, sew up my eye-lids, and pour boiling water in my shell-likes.

Crufts

 

Caught the last 5 minutes waiting for the Adam Curtis documentary at 9pm, that’s 5 minutes I’ve lost for good. It’s a fucking weird event Crufts, there is something unholy about it. It gives me grave cause for concern.

I think the whole aspect of have a creature then ‘making it’ do stuff it doesn’t want to do by, ultimately, being a shit to it, is horrendous. Feeding it stuff it wouldn’t eat if it were allowed to freely forage… everyone knows dogs like stuff from bins and wasps, then to fiddle and preen it as if it were ones own hair just add’s insult to injury.

All the people involved in Crufts aren’t right. That’s right – all of the people I’ve ever seen involved in this meat market for dogs are fucking strange. The winner for Best in Show, a long-haired creature, was being fiddled over by an American bot merchant. Clare Balding was interviewing him as he was ‘positioning’ his hairy dog on the podium. I noticed a magnum of champagne, was that for the dog?

Incidentally, Clare Balding. How on earth this square faced bean-flicker got on to the TV in the first place is to me an anathema. Maybe by presenting Crufts she was hoping to get a rosette for best in breed? She got a bit upset because, apparently, the winning dog was in some way related to one of her dogs, or her, I got confused. I felt sick. Why was she upset, what is the MATTER with her? Either way, I smell cheating. (The other presenter was that nice chap who won Castaway, Ben Fogle… but what the fuck was he doing presenting Crufts? Whose idea was that? Why?)

After the dog and his owner got presented with a trophy the au fait American bloke picked his dog up off the podium, put him on the floor of the arena then skipped around with his dog hopping behind. He then put the dog back on the podium, corrected the dogs hind leg as the way it was stood wasn’t to his liking and gave its hair a comb. What the fuck was he thinking? What a cunt.

I don’t know much about dogs but I know when they’re too hot they pant. In the space of 5 minutes the dog had gone from a regular pant to having full blown respiratory problems, its tongue was out by nearly half a foot and it’s mouth was so wide open it appeared as if it was trying to regurgitate a pigeon. How fucking cruel is that? Just so a few people and its weird owner could derive some sort of revolting pleasure.

It’s a disgraceful display of exploitation in my opinion, coupled with an undercurrent of bestiality. I think the BBC should take a long hard look at themselves.

Clare Balding should be put down by the way. I think that’s best for everyone.