Mr Pendle refers, of course, to the latest series of "Big Brother" which began on Channel 4 last week.

Save for one brief glimpse in a previous series, in which people were asleep and nothing happened apart from a couple of women sitting talking on a settee, Mr Pendle has had the good sense and good fortune never to have seen the programme.

And small wonder.

Why should Mr Pendle want to watch a blind cross-dresser, two political refugees, an albino, a sex addict bodybuilder and his partner, a bullying chef, a vain man who says everyone should wear fake tan, another who rates his looks as 10 out of 10 and the rest of the motley crew of individuals wandering around in various stages of undress while they rant and rave at one another by day and take part in false relationships for the sake of the TV cameras by night?

"Big Brother" is filled with the sort of people who Mr Pendle would cross the street to avoid – and the photos of the latest lot which appeared in the papers on Friday were a classic example why.

Attention seekers and eccentrics all - the principal reason for auditioning for the programme – they posed and preened as though they were something special.

Not to Mr Pendle they weren't.

He just wonders how they have all managed to get 13 weeks off work to take part in the programme – that is, of course, if they have jobs to do in the first place.


LAST week, Mr Pendle asked how many people were interested in the European football championships – and he did not have long to wait for an answer.

On Friday, he received an email which said a survey had found 40% of British men and 57% of women don't care about the competition.

But the survey then fell into the old trap of believing football is the most important thing on the planet, and questioners sounded shocked people could actually find something better to do with their lives than watching 22 foreigners kick a ball around a field.

Mr Pendle had no trouble doing that when the competition opened on Saturday night – his favourite rugby league team, Castleford Tigers, had their "derby" game with Wakefield Trinity Wildcats shown on Sky at the same time, so he naturally tuned in to watch that.

And even though Cas lost (again!), how the Swiss, the Czechs, the Portuguese and the Turks fared did not concern him in the slightest – two meaningless games in a meaningless (to this country at any rate) competition which has no place on mainstream, peak hours television.