Better off dying in your sleep.

Sometimes material just can’t keep away. It runs towards, throws off its clothes and jumps all over you. 2 days ago a poll was released containing the top 20 UK breakfast TV presenters, as voted for by the readers of The Radio Times. Even if the list had been brilliant the poll would have been pointless anyway because The Radio Times average reader age is about 87 and, I’ll be frank here, I won’t expect anyone to take my opinion seriously when I get to that age. I realise that asks more questions than it answers.

So, Christmas edition aside, The Radio Times is a pretty much futile publication and should be given a very wide berth. The top 20 list is of a similarly futile nature but if anything much more worrying because it contains so many disappointing people. I’m not so much disappointed that they made the list, I’m disappointed that most of them exist altogether.

1. Eamonn Holmes. Trace Sherlock Holmes’ family tree for long enough and you’re bound to find a fat, unfunny Irishman with mild learning difficulties. That’s harsh, the camera adds a few pounds. In the world of the sane most experts have searched high and low to find a single instance of chubby Eamonn ever saying anything worth saying, let alone remembering. His mouth is at the end of a constant river of nothingness (the source being his bloated arsehole) and in that sense he betrays that worst of Irish traits: the assumption that by being Irish one is automatically poetic, charming and funny. He most certainly is not.

2. Johnny Vaughn. Not all bad, I like him. He’s funny. He can stay.

3. Piers Morgan. It’s at this point we must remember that The Radio Times caters for a large proportion of the dementia demographic. Voting Piers Morgan towards the top of this list is no different to voting Hitler as ‘Dictator of the Year 1938’, on the basis that he isn’t as bad as he could be.

4. Dan Walker. I assume he got to number 4 because for a lot of crazy old ladies he reminds them of their dead son. He has the charisma of a rolling pin and the face of someone I’d like to throw an ironing board at.

5. Bill Turnbull. Several times winner of the Bill Turnbull prize for being amazing at being Bill Turnbull. Presented by Bill Turnbull. I pray for the day a swarm of angry bees turn on him in his underpants.

6. Susanna Reid. I assume a lot of men voted for her because I get the feeling she’s the kind of woman that not a lot of other women like. The reasons are too plentiful to discuss here.

7. Louise Minchin. She’s ok. I suppose. And she has to sit next to some world class pricks every morning, which can’t be easy.

8. Steph McGovern. Number 8 is a remarkably high number to start scraping the barrel. I don’t have a great deal against her and the fact she has a face that’s longer than Red Rum’s is of no interest to me. It’s just that sailing into eighth place seems a touch immature.

9. Chris Evans. This must be from back-in-the-day when Chris Evans was young and had something to prove. Now he’s middle aged and has dozens of people around him to confirm the sun shines out of his pasty backside. When will someone tell him they’re lying?

10. Lorraine Kelly. The woman that other women do like. Can’t argue with that.

11. Naga Munchetty. Not beyond merit. Would be higher if she didn’t make her clothes from the contents of Liberace’s tropical holiday cravat drawer.

12. Sian Williams. As bland as a piece of damp cardboard painted with a coat of magnolia and topped off with a tea cosy.

13. Ben Shepard. Trapped in a world where he is perpetually 17 and a half. I wonder what he looks like when he’s trying to express a strong opinion.

14. Penny Smith. As ‘normal’ as they get and forever overlooked in favour of some loose-knickered new butterfly on the block. Should be top 3.

15. Charlie Stayt. Arrogant, pointless dick who knows slightly less than nothing. No positive list is long enough to have him at the bottom of it.

16. Kate Garraway. A human portal through whom all aspiring breakfast TV mums judge themselves. Thick and doughy. Reliable. Utterly uninspiring.

17. Sarah-Jane Mee. Who? Oh her! Who? Find me someone normal who regularly watches Sky News and I’ll find you Amelia Earhart’s cabin luggage.

18. Anne Diamond. Horrible little woman, so petty and vacuous she tried to convince a nation she’d lost all that weight by herself. Not a diamond in the rough. Just rough and the empty carcass of a unloveable cow.

19. Jill Dando. Poor girl. And 19th place is all The Radio Times could muster.

20. Sophie Raworth. What’s wrong with Sophie Raworth? Nothing really. I hope that one day she gets a chance to pour rancid mayonnaise in Susanna Reid’s handbag.

And just to clarify, that’s the TOP 20. I’m off to look at some of the people that didn’t make the list. Like Sharron Davies and that deeply unsexy bearded man who fills up the BBC sofa when everyone else can’t be bothered to come to work on a Saturday morning.

Happy viewing or set to snooze.

G B Hewitt. 15.11.2017