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, hosted by Yvette Fielding and ‘Britain’s leading psychic’ Derek Acorah. It’s outrageous nonsense—nothing but a bunch of people lamely making stuff up, holding seances and going ‘woooh’, shot with night-vision cameras to make it look creepy. The only thing genuinely returning from the grave here is Yvette’s career.
    Still, Derek’s hilarious, particularly when he gets ‘possessed’ by spirits and screams the word ‘bitch’ right into Yvette’s face. If he believes in what he’s doing, he’s insane. If he doesn’t, he’s a laughable prat. Either way, Derek loses and we win. As a ‘paranormal investigation’, Most Haunted is about as scientifically rigorous as an episode of Bod , but the audience laps it up. I watched last weekend’s ‘live special’ and was dismayed by the avalanche of texts the show received.
    Mind you, many claimed to have experienced a strange sensation of’nausea’ and reported their sets ‘switching off’ during the show. Paranormal phenomena, or flickerings of sanity? You needn’t be psychic to work that one out.

If a penis could choose its own wardrobe
    [26 March 2005]
    I f a penis could choose its own wardrobe and hair stylist, chances are it’d end up looking like Duane ‘Dog’ Chapman, star of Dog the Bounty Hunter (Bravo). Essentially The Osbournes with pepper spray, it’s a light-hearted docusoap chronicling the life of a family of bounty hunters—Dog, his wife Beth, son Leland, brother Tim and nephew Justin.
    The Chapmans all dress like bombastic 19805 action movie heroes—particularly Dog himself, who stomps about wearing biker boots, leather trousers, open shirts and a haircut that makes him resemble the entire cast of The Lost Boys crossed with a gay lion.
    It’s worth tuning in for about five minutes simply for that haircut, but sadly Dog soon turns out to be about 10 per cent as interesting as he and the producers think he is.
    In fact, I only mention it because Dog spends most of his time hauling poverty-stricken heroin addicts out of shit-encrusted trailer homes, thus providing a perfect contrast to The Queen’s Castle (BBC1), also a docusoap, but set in one of the most expensive homes in the world: Windsor Castle. Unlike Dog the Bounty Hunter , no one gets kicked in the nuts or zapped with a Taser gun in this show and, for reasons which will now become clear, that’s a crying shame.
    As the programme begins, a great hoo-hah is made of the fact that the crew has been granted ‘unprecedented access’ to Windsor Castle, as though we should be somehow grateful for being granted a peep at the glittering opulence within—opulence we’ve paid for and which the royals take for granted. But before you come to terms with that, the programme hits you with something else: polishing.
    Lots of polishing. Hours of it. Too much in fact. I now understand how the Windsor Castie fire broke out: a member of staff had been ordered to polish the Queen’s teaspoons till they glowed white-hot.
    There’s also dusting, wiping, mopping, folding, ironing, arranging…you name it: priceless trinkets and pieces of furniture painstakingly manipulated by subservient staff on behalf of Her Grumpiness the Crone, who turns up hours later and doesn’t even say thank you.
    Naturally, the inmates of this slave-labour camp are filled with pride, mesmerised by the prestige of a lifetime spent in pointless backbreaking servitude. One woman almost blubs for joy, recounting how as a girl she dreamed of spending each day on her hands and knees, needlessly wiping any object the Queen might waft within 500 metres of. Now her wildest childhood fantasies have come true.
    It doesn’t stop with housework. Every imaginable convenience is taken care of by a crack squad of fawning serfs. Guests staying overnight don’t unpack their own cases: a team of maids does it for them. Diners tucking in to a helping of swan-and-unicorn terrine have it practically spoon-fed to them by grovelling