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tunes.
    And I might be going mad, but I reckon there’s a faint whiff of sex about Hi-5 themselves. Bet they all share a group shower at the end of each recording.
    Then there’s Elmo’s World, a Sesame Street spin-off in which a scarlet squawking abomination with googly eyes scampers round a house made entirely of crayon drawings which spring into life at random intervals. It’s what the world probably looks like when you get hit on the head with a croquet mallet and it’s fantastic.
    All in all, Milkshake! offers such a refreshing start to the day, it’s hard to see why anyone would choose to spend time in the company of Eamonn Holmes instead (he’s quitting GMTV of course—probably before he bloats to the point of actually exploding on-screen).
    Milkshake! could cheer practically anyone up. If Supervolcano plunges you into a trough of despair, tune in the next morning and learn to smile again before the world ends.

Holding seances and going’Woooh’
    [19 March 2005]
    H ooray for me! Having lived for years in a house where the landlord forbade satellite dishes (although rat infestations were OK ), I’ve moved to a place where no such ban exists. Which is why I spent last Saturday pacing the floor, staring at my watch and chanting ‘When will the Sky Man come?’ like an awestruck Amazonian native awaiting the return of his rainforest messiah. ‘Soon the Sky Man shall arrive with his box of visions. It is written he will come from the south, from the Croydon installation centre, before the sun is at its peak, traffic permitting.’
    In accordance with the prophecy, he arrived, did his job, and bingo: the magic box lives. Plus I’ve got that fancy Sky Plus impos-sible-o-vision thing that lets you pause, rewind, record, weigh, violate, polish and season whatever it spews out, for no good reason whatsoever. Finally, I can enjoy livingTV’s full range of psychic-centric programming to the full—something I’d been looking forward to, not because I’m interested in the afterlife, but because I simply can’t believe the sheer audacity of the people who claim to be in touch with it.
    Take Crossing Over with John Edward , a US import in which the host purports to receive messages from the dead relatives of vulnerable audience members. The show seems heavily edited, and Edward’s messages are either hopelessly vague or clearly whittled down through methodical ‘cold-reading’ (the guessing-game process of elimination via which so-called mediums often appear to arrive at accurate revelations).
    Nevertheless, his victims fall for it, possibly because they can’t quite believe a fellow human being would exploit the pain of their bereavement for financial gain. Anyway, forget channelling spirits—Edwards seems rather better at channelling the facial mannerisms of Sylvester Stallone. Either that or he’s recently been smacked in the jaw with a boat hook. Like he deserves.
    Then there’s Sixth Sense in which Colin Fry, who looks like a failed prototype Chuckle brother, pulls much the same shtick for a UK audience. Both shows feature heavy disclaimers in the credits—a wodge of text that shoots down any notion of plausibility, claiming the shows are not purporting to be taken as factual, and are simply ‘entertainment’.
    In other words, by their own admission, they’re making grief-stricken relatives cry for entertainment. On a scale of moral repre-hensibility, this isn’t too far away from child porn. It’s psychological rape: disgusting, dishonest and exploitative. Here’s how to solve the psychic problem: make it a jailable offence for any ‘medium’ to charge for their services without a licence. How do they get a licence? Simply by demonstrating their abilities under laboratory conditions (something not one has ever been able to do). That’d sort ‘em out.
    Less sickening, though equally preposterous, is Most Haunted— an allegedly ‘factual’ cross between Scooby-Doo and the Blair Witch Project