Take two of these three times a day

Doesn’t Sarah Kennedy talk some bloody drivel? Unfortunately for the rest of the Radio 2 listeners and me she whitters on until 07:30 every weekday morning, the last 20 minutes of which coincides with Malignant breakfast time. Leaving aside the god-awful Show Tune spot and her constant and annoying insistence on referring to certain places and thing with a mangled version of the proper names; calling the Scissor Sisters, the “Squissor Sisters” isn’t funny when done once, do it half a dozen times in ten minutes and you’ve got me shouting at the radio. She topped her own low ratings this morning when she chose to quote some “hilarious” anecdotes from the “my little grandson Willie was in the garden the other day” type stable. 

Now Kennedy has made something of a name for herself by peddling this type of childish pap for far too many years, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to be forced to listen to this piffle, but what gets me about the whole thing is that some people not only find it funny but also find it somewhat endearing. Huh? I’m confused. How can the pathetic squawkings of some faceless toddler that you can’t possibly know be considered charming? And also isn’t it plainly obvious to others as it certainly is for me that all these stories have been seriously doctored or manipulated by the darling Granny passing the story onwards. Anyway the story she relayed today concerns some tiny brat appearing in the school’s nativity play. Apparently he goes home and tells his mum he is to appear as “a Pie” in the play. Confused the doting mother telephones the school and asks what is going on. The school explain that little Willie is actually to be a Shepherd but obviously not knowing what a Shepherd was he’s associated the name with something that he had heard of, i.e. a Shepherd’s Pie. Now leaving aside the fact that this just isn’t funny anyway, I would be too bloody embarrassed to advertise the fact that my kid was so thick! Not knowing what a Shepherd was? I mean come on, ok there are a hell of a lot more IT Support Consultants around these days than Shepherds but it’s hardly an obscure term is it. Compare this with the intelligent and inquisitive enquiry that the Rubot asked me this morning. “Are the letters D & R short for Doctor?” asked the future head of the Bank of England as he read the panel on the side of the Cheerios about Dr Clare Chapman, Nestlé’s resident nutritionist and lesbian lookalike*. And no, I didn’t make this up. 

*I have no idea if Dr Chapman is a lesbian but she looks like one, and anyway it took her about 6 weeks to email me back with a reply to my question about what the difference between a “Cereal with Wholegrain” and “Wholegrain Cereal” was. The bloody cow! 

Sports Personality of the Year. Mmmmm a possible candidate for oxymoron of the year? It’s certainly a curious event and one that I tend to watch religiously (Amen) every year. In general the winner will be the sportsperson who has contributed the most iconic sporting image on that particular year and has little to do with their actual “personality”. A look through the list of past winners will confirm this, 2005 Freddie Flintoff in the year England regained the Ashes. 2004 – Kelly Holmes in the year she won double gold at the Olympics, 2003 – Jonny Wilkinson the year England won the Rugby World Cup thanks to Jonny’s dropkick, and the list goes on. I mean lets face it, if it was based on actual personality how on earth would Nigel Mansell ever have won it………………TWICE!? But this year has been a real drought in these terms of Sporting achievement. I don’t mean that British Sportspeople haven’t won anything, or course they have but we haven’t had that singular brilliant image that other years have produced. Which is probably why the top ten shortlist produced featured such sporting luminaries as Phil Taylor and Nicole Cooke. Now I’m not doubting the commitment and dedication and even the achievements that some of the shortlist have managed but I do question how on earth an armchair sports fan should choose between, let’s say Beth Tweddle and Ricky Hatton. So all in all it’s comes a bit of a pointless exercise. This year’s winner, Zara Phillips, is obviously a very talented and successful horsewoman, but how many votes were cast in her favour, not necessarily because she’s a Royal (although no doubt some fawning royal loving toadies did so), but because people liked the connection with her mother having won the title in 1971. But one thing seeing her win did confirm is that the class system is alive and well and currently living in the hearts and minds of the British Equestrian community. Basically every time the cameras showed a picture of Zara sitting alongside current squeeze England Rugby centre Mike Tindall, they would then flash to a nearby table full of bigwigs from the 3 day eventing world, including her father Mark Phillips and certain other horsey types; Pippa Funnell and Lucinda Green to mention but two. The thing I noticed was that this bunch were dressed differently from the rest of the audience. The men very fairly conservatively dressed in suits or evening suits, as you would expect, but where as the majority of other ladies were dressing in your usual array of fitting and not so fitting strappy evening gowns the horsey ladies were all dressed in what can only be described as blazers, some of which were very peculiar. I’m sure a psychologist would have a field day analysing this. Did you see what Zara herself was wearing? Bloody Hell at this rate she’ll end up on the side of a box of cereal.

Zara Phillips, she may have her knockers but I'ma big fan!