No deal

The infuriatingly slow Deal Or No Deal has just produced its first jackpot winner. Thank Christ. It's not on that much in the Collier household as we often have drying paint that needs watching around that time of the evening. Pint-sized host Noel is another of those unfortunate individuals who buys his trousers according to chest size (and he tries to puff his likkle chest out, bless him), and strides about like Stalin, talking on an old Bakelite phone to a mysterious "banker" (who, for the benefit of the slower-witted, doesn't exist).

I will concede that Noel looks good for his age though, which I can only assume is as a result of selling his diminutive soul to Bealzebub sometime around the early '90s. Actually, Dirk Benedict on Celebrity Big Brother also looks very good for his age. It's lucky there are 'celebrities' like Keith Chegwin around to provide counterpoint to this trend. He seems happy enough looking as rough as a rhubarb crumble wrapped up in human flesh, bounding around the country with his giant GMTV "Chegbook".

Even less fathomable is the attraction of the DOND 'interactive DVD' that's being sold in enormous quantities at the moment. Because it's a game of chance/fate (call it what you like) and requires no skill whatsoever beyond the ability to call out numbers, surely the only appeal in participating is the possibility you might win some cash, which can't be a feature of the DVD version.

"Ooh, look. I've won £250,000 again."
"Well done. Another game?"
"(sigh) I suppose so."

When you think of the thousands of man-hours wasted in pointless activities like this, it's a sad indictment on the modern world. Years ago people would make good use of their time by build pyramids or conquering civilisations or something. Not, strictly speaking, ethically sound, but at least it was time spent constructively. Tutankhamun, the boy king of Egypt, wouldn't have delayed the building of his geometrically astonishing tomb because he was deliberating over whether boxes he was about to open happened to be coloured blue or red inside.