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Most Haunted and other bullshit TV classics of yesteryear

YVETTE Fielding has claimed on GMTV that the obviously bollocks ghost show Most Haunted was real. Here’s more televisual nonsense you sat through uncritically.

Most Haunted

Unavoidable ghost hunting show which should have been titled Pretty Obviously Not Haunted. Went on for ages, despite its grimly repetitive formula of endless darkened corridors, noises that could have been anything, and precisely no hauntings.  

Cheggers Plays Pop

TV schedule filler you watched while hoping something slightly better would come on, like Space Sentinels. Often featured less-popular pop stars like Barbara Dickson plugging their new single, and what child isn’t a massive fan of Andrew Lloyd-Webber?  

Torchwood 

Sci-fi fans were thrilled by the prospect of a serious, adult-oriented Doctor Who spin-off. What they got was a bunch of wankers running round Cardiff, unconvincing swearing and some aliens that were exactly as shit as the worst ones in Doctor Who.   

Goodnight Sweetheart

Maybe the strangest premise ever for a sitcom: Nicholas Lyndhurst time-travels from the 90s to have unfunny adventures in wartime London. So obviously targeted at a nostalgic pensioner audience it should have called Eeh, Things Were Better In The Old Days.

Skins 

Massively hyped as a shocking – and realistic – expose of modern teenage life. Actually just another Channel 4 attempt to be controversial with annoying middle class shitheads. Should really have contained no sex whatsoever, A-level revision and revolting attempts to pop your Baron Harkonnen-style spots.

Knightmare

Youngsters entered a thrilling interactive fantasy world of knights and quests! Or a kid slowly stumbled round a studio with a helmet blocking their vision because the technology of the time couldn’t deliver. Mis-selling of the most heinous kind.

Dominic Raab's guide to words people don't understand

WORDS can be difficult, especially if you didn’t go to Cambridge like I did. Here’s my explanation of words people don’t understand, but I do.

Misogyny

Most people, aside from me, think misogyny means hatred or prejudice towards women. However, it actually means towards women AND men. Poor men, they get such a hard time. Sod women. And yes, that is official government policy.

Port

There’s a general consensus that a port, such as the one in Dover, is where trade takes place and is important for Brexit, something I was once secretary of. That is wrong. Port is actually a drink, idiots. One that I enjoyed sipping in the Commons bar with Boris, before he stopped talking to me.

Beach

You might have got the impression that a beach is a place where people lounge around in the sun drinking cocktails while Afghanistan falls to the Taliban. Well, it’s not. It’s actually a kind of sandy office, where ministers do their important jobs that they’ve inexplicably got despite being shit at everything.

Cashflow

Does cashflow mean your much-needed income? Or is it a harmless, temporary thing where people briefly are a bit short of money and have to rely on a food bank? Obviously it’s the latter, which is why I said people using them just have ‘episodic cashflow problems’. No one ever died from skipping the odd meal or never turning the heating on, probably.

Human rights

This is technically two words but try to keep up with me. People, like lawyers and other criminals, say human rights are something everyone is entitled to. This is simply not true because human rights don’t exist. Well, they won’t when I’m done with them. Forget this phrase now. It’s nonsense.

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