I'VE never watched more than five minutes of I'm a Celebrity... because I found the whole concept strangely like some sort of medieval torture chamber where the TV audience gets to pile on more horrors to whichever 'celeb' they least like.
Egged on by ageing schoolboys, Ant and Dec, various famous people try to re-ignite their flagging careers or in the cases of ex-Strictly bad boy Seann Walsh and disgraced former health secretary, Matt Hancock, it's some kind of attempt at redemption in the court of public opinion.
Hopeless Hancock's timing could have been better, since the inquiry into the UK's response to the Covid pandemic has just started. But he explained he was in the jungle to show a politician's human side and highlight dyslexia.
He'll also trouser a cool £400,000 appearance fee. But sure, it's not about the cash, is it?
A spokesperson for the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group aren't impressed: "If he had any respect for the families, he would be sharing his private emails with the Covid inquiry, not eating bugs on TV."
In between not calling an election and cutting MLA pay, our Secretary of State, Chris Heaton-Harris, claimed scores of MPs and peers downloaded the I'm a Celeb app so that they can vote for Hancock to face the nightly bushtucker trials which to date have seen him dine on a camel's penis, a sheep's vagina and a fish eye. Bon appetit.
You might think Hancock should be facing their ire for his role in handling the pandemic, when vulnerable and elderly patients were discharged from hospitals to care homes without being tested for Covid – a decision which led to thousands of deaths and which a judge ruled was an "unlawful and irrational" policy.
He wasted £37 billion in a failed test and trace system, oversaw handing over government contracts for PPE to cronies who donated money to the Tories and was sacked after being caught in a clinch with his mistress and aide while telling people to avoid contact with their loved ones – even on their deathbeds.
Yet taking part in a reality show is what Tories think has brought the party into disrepute.
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DEAR footie fans, who are now outraged at the World Cup kicking off in Qatar, that desert paradise where gay people are criminalised, women are suppressed and hundreds of migrant workers have died building stadia in hellish conditions... It's 12 years since Fifa awarded the contest to Qatar, so isn't it all a bit late to start complaining now?
And where were you when Russia, under Putin, got to run the 2018 competition, even though it had illegally annexed Crimea just four years before?
Oh, and didn't we all know about China's treatment of its Uyghur Muslim population and its "re-education" camps when the world happily took part in the 2022 Winter Olympics?
Sports-washing is by far the favourite event for pariah states. It might be an idea to make adherence to basic human rights the main qualification for a successful bid.
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LIKE so many, I was saddened at the untimely death of Éamon Phoenix this week. Belfast is a small place, so our families knew each other from way back. But it was on a professional basis that I came to appreciate his wonderful gifts.
He took part in a series of inserts for Hearts and Minds, delving into historical events in locations across the north that had helped shape our society.
I was aggrieved that BBC NI's sense of 'balance' meant I also had to ask a historian from 'the other side' to contribute too. I tried to argue that being called Éamon didn't perforce make him a spokesman for nationalism. To no avail.
What I remember most was his sheer professionalism. He walked round a damp Friar's Bush graveyard at Stranmillis, and gave a potted history of Ireland from the graves he pointed out. He was so fluent and expert in his subject that he didn't need a single retake.
He was endlessly courteous and professional, even when asked to go on air at a moment's notice.
Éamon was close to my late uncle, James Kelly, and was a source of advice and encouragement when he wrote his book, Bonfires on the Hillside, looking back on his lengthy career as a journalist.
The biggest loss is to his wife Alice and their family. But to those of us who knew him through his work and passion for history, quite simply, we will never see his like again.
