THE joy and the pain of this job is that, after a while, you realise you’ve seen almost everything telly has to offer.
Not just the formats but also the personnel who, from the high-profile presenters to the bit-part players, are painfully familiar.
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Take, for instance, Channel 5’s Pet Psychic Beth Lee-Crowther, who first came to my attention filling This Morning’s dingbat slot just after the 2020 US elections, when she claimed to have had a psychic message from Joe Biden’s dogs, Champ and Major, who’d told her: “He will be a President like we’ve never seen before.”
It’s vaguely true, I suppose, like so much of the cobblers psychics spout.
Joe Biden is indeed the first Commander in Chief who’s been asleep 98 per cent of the time and flat on his backside the other two per cent.
If, as Beth claims, though, “pets can predict the future”, you’d have thought Champ would have told her he’d snuff it within a year and Major might’ve mentioned he’d break the President elect’s ankle, playing tug-of-war 19 days later and be out on his arse for biting White House staff by December 2021.
Still, it was enough to land Beth her own show on Channel 5, where she travels the country visiting distressed animals, who have so far included: Petal the chicken who was experiencing Post Traumatic Fox Disorder, Misty the ferret, who wanted a mate to distract her rather over- attentive owner, and a cat called Cookie, with two deformed limbs, who even the non-telepathic viewers could tell was screaming: “Get me on Channel 4’s Supervet NOW.”
For you don’t have to watch Pet Psychic for too long to realise it’s not the animals who are the real problem here, it’s the human beings.
You can almost smell the desperation coming off most of them, in fact, with this week’s chief worry being a part-time actor called Shylah who wanted to know: “Can Labou, my dog, predict the future? ’Cos I’d like to know how my acting career is going to go.”
Very badly is the honest and truthful answer to that one, but Beth had better news from Labou, who’d apparently told her: “You are a star. You’re going to be offered a role and your reaction will be, ‘I’m not ready’, but you are ready.”
So embrace that rear end of a horse costume, Shylah.
Supreme flattery is, of course, all part of a psychic’s weaponry, along with an air of mystical innocence.
To look really authentic, though, every now and then they do have to throw in a solid, startling fact that seems to have been plucked straight from the paranormal version of Google.
As luck would have it, a chance presented itself on Monday’s show, when the Pet Psychic visited the Fossett family, who farm camels for milk, in Warwickshire, for a telepathic one-to-one with a dromedary called Soraya, who was drooling from the gob one minute but coming on like an Egyptian Dragons’ Den contestant as soon as Beth got hold of her.
“Soraya says you can turn that milk into other products,” said Beth, after entering a deep and profound trance alongside the camel.
“Skin-care is what she particularly shows me.”
“That’s funny,” replied an apparently startled Daisy Fossett: “’Cos that’s something we’ve been looking into for a while.”
It is indeed, I can confirm. For it was that moment I realised I’d seen the Fossett family before, in 2022, on Aldi’s Next Big Thing, a Channel 4 show where they were trying to flog camel milk products.
They were very specific, in the local Press interviews afterwards as well, stressing that camel soap and beauty products were a big part of those plans.
The internet keeps receipts, you see, which is just one more reason why the only part of any psychic show I fully trust are the credits and disclaimers, where they admit Beth isn’t a trained vet or animal behaviourist and that the terminally gullible should really: “Contact your local professional if you have any concerns about your pet.”
Out of legal courtesy more than anything else, though, I should also paraphrase the words of the late, great, paranormal debunker James Randi and say Beth Lee-Crowther may well have psychic powers, by means of which she can receive messages about camel soap from animals, but if so, she isn’t half going about it the hard way.
ON the first Saturday Night Takeaway of its 20th and final series, Ant & Dec flashed up pictures of what everyone looked like over two decades ago.
Everyone except star guest Simon Cowell, who seems to have suffered some horrific industrial accident since those days and can no longer open his left eye without the aid of a hydraulic power lift.
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Brave little soldier that he is, though, Simon had given the boys consent to show two hit-and-miss hidden camera pranks they had played on him in Los Angeles.
The first featured a fake policeman claiming local bicycle restrictions had been violated by “someone matching your description”. (Michael Myers?)
The second involved “accidentally” locking Simon in a magician’s box, on America’s Got Talent, while an overly officious health and safety officer repeatedly asked him: “Do you give me consent to put on these goggles?”
A request that was more than a little surplus to requirements given Simon had already given consent for some “beautician” to give him the Phantom Of The Power Ballad look.
Just when you thought the embarrassment was over, though, up popped guest announcer Stephen Merchant to offer his own Simon Cowell impression before explaining: “It’s not very convincing ’cos my face moved.”
With the funny thing being, I’m not sure ITV had given him consent.
OUT Of Order, Rosie Jones: “Can you put the show’s Regulars in order of who’s pulled the most sickies?”
Joke writers, most sickies. Canned laughter operator, least sickies.
Needs must.
THE Weakest Link, Romesh Ranganathan: “In the children’s TV series Sesame Street, what K is the name of the green frog that is one of Jim Henson’s earliest Muppet creations?”
Michael Buerk: “Krypton.” Romesh: “In the Western calendar, how many days are there in a leap year?”
Donna Preston: “40,000.”
Tipping Point, Ben Shephard: “In a game of bingo, which number is often announced with the phrase ‘Life begins’?”
Faisal: “11.”
Celebrity Mastermind, Clive Myrie: “On a standard set of British traffic lights, what colour light means go, as long as the way is clear?”
Amber Butchart: “Amber.”
BBC and ITV simultaneously wiping out two consecutive nights of prime-time telly with FA Cup football.
Netflix drama One Day firmly establishing itself as the most overrated thing since Banksy.
And Charlotte Church telling Wheel Of Fortune, “I’m deeply motivated by helping the human race to heal and feel better about itself”, on the very same night she led pro-Palestinian crazies in an anti-Semitic chant encouraging the destruction of the Jewish state.
May God help the human race if Charlotte ever turns nasty.
GREAT TV lies and delusions. Dancing On Ice, Holly Willoughby: “Johnny (Weir), you look fabulous, by the way.”
The Weakest Link, Ekin-Su Culculoglu: “I’m a tough woman, I can handle rejection.” (Livid.)
And Love Island: All Stars, Joanna: “I’ve learned looks aren’t the most important thing in life.”
Then boy oh boy, did you ever apply for the wrong show.
PETER DRURY: “It’s amazing that Liverpool’s youngsters are adults as soon as they’ve stopped being kids.”
Katie Shanahan: “Bristol Rovers are down to ten-nil.” And Chris Sutton: “This season is just about slow progress. That’s what the Palace fans want. Well, they want fast progress.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
CHANNEL 4’s brilliant documentary Concorde: The Race For Supersonic.
ITV’s two-parter The British Airways Killer, which illustrated the failings of the jury system far more powerfully than C4’s Murder Trial experiment.
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Rod Stewart and Jools Holland lifting Dancing On Ice out of its clap-clap-clap lethargy.
The Goggleboxers’ priceless reaction to Eric Cantona singing on Michael McIntyre’s Big Show: “It looks like a p***ed divorcee doing karaoke down the pub.”
And the Scotland rugby team’s ever gallus leader, Finn Russell swaggering around with the Calcutta Cup, which, contrary to Ant & Dec’s Takeaway claims, was the happiest minute of the week, for the fourth year on the bounce.
IN a new low for panel show formats, Out Of Order, on the ironically titled Comedy Central channel, features glorified audience members called “The Regulars” wearing “he/him”, “she/her” pronoun badges.
And, amazingly, that’s not the worst thing about the show.
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It also features Katherine Ryan, every week.
And amazingly, that’s not the worst thing about the show.
It also features Judi Love, every week.
And, amazingly, that’s not the worst thing about the show.
It also features Rosie Jones, every week. And, amaz- ingly, she’s the host.
INCIDENTALLY, given the glut of 40th anniversary miners’ strike shows hitting the market, I’d be prepared to offer a guaranteed five- star review to the first BBC or Channel 4 documentary which remembers the action wasn’t backed by the TUC, steel workers or Labour leader Neil Kinnock (the son of a miner), because of the NUM’s refusal to hold a ballot and the grotesque levels of violence which blighted the strike and culminated in the brutal killing of a Welsh taxi driver, David Wilkie, by two strikers.
But I can almost guarantee that none of them will have the integrity or bottle to do so.
THIS week’s winner is Keir Starmer and Whitey from Flushed Away.
Sent in by Rick Emerson.
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