Confessions of a cowboy-astronaut-secret-agent

Right-o. Confession time, sports fans. Confession number one: I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of any organisation or group dedicated or supportive to the downfall of the United States, unless you count that time I stook my foot out as George Bush was walking past. (That's a hilarious joke about downfall. Just think about it in relation to tripping up and it'll come flooding to you.)

Confession number two: I appear to have passed what is known as the Hair Event Horizon. By some rough calculations, I appear to have spent round about 80.4%, give or take, of what is vaguely referred to as my adult life with hair long enough to keep my ears warm during a cool breeze. My hair and my being have become, in many ways, inexorably linked; at some point, I suspect it was around a year and a half ago, when I realised I could tie my hair into a legitimate ponytail, the notion of a haircut stopped being just something that happens to people sometimes and would now be considered a major lifestyle choice, perhaps equivalent to deciding that I'm gay or that the whole eccentricity angle of my lifestyle is a bit rubbish and that what I really want to do is shave my head, tattoo something ridiculous onto my bicep and stand at the front of the crowd at football matches yelling racial slurs at opposition players and banging on about how great it is to be British. My only hair-related choices now are to retain my ponytail my whole life, thereby ageing really quite disgracefully and ending up either balding at the front and ponytailed at the back or just being sixty and having exactly the same hair but grey, which is the sort of thing no-one wants to see, except possibly people who teach maths or physics.

Confession number three: my estimeed colleague Mr Christopher S Gifford, BA (hons), is a raving crack dealer. Not, perhaps, crack in the sense of cocaine specially treated to become extra moreish, although truth be told my trusty ol' pipe does need a refill, but rather a far more sickening form of crack in the shape of Channel 4's bikinis-boobies-and-buff-looking-blokes-with-a-token-gay fest Shipwrecked, which is, for a man who spends his time living on an intellectual pedastal looking down at the thickoes and laughing at them, about five times more damaging than a real crack habit. Having acquired the habit last year via the televisual osmosis that occurs when sharing a house, I found myself sitting down earlier tonight in no state less than anticipation of this year's event, which proposes to steal my Sunday evenings for the next six months. Handily, though, I've found that it's entirely legitimate for the following reason: it's got a great big racist in it. A proper racist, mind, who goes around talking about how immigrants are destroying the British culture and seems to think that she and her ilk are the only thing standing between our soverign, noble shores and a wave of dirty foreigners who will, first chance they get, burn down all our libraries and start using the Union Flag as dishcloths or somesuch. Being on this particular show means it's a shoe-in that she's a veritable covergirl for the BNP, and she's also got a rather handy sideline in hating fat people, too, just in case the racism doesn't work out for her. Fresh out of public school with a string of top A-levels (probably, I wasn't actually listening at that point, but it's a nigh-on given), we're faced with a well-educated Farquarette or Quentina who insists on throwing around the sort of talk you expect from the aforementioned thuggish morons at the side of football pitches (halfway through the previous paragraph, if you're only skim-reading this).

So, let's take this in the direction we've all predicted; why the fuck has Jade 'couldn't find her arse with both hands, a map, and a neon sign saying "Jade, your arse is behind you, just at the top of those obsencely lardy thighs"' Goody been grabbing all the headlines? She may or may not be a racist, but she is ultimately, and chiefly, a total knob. Why are we all feigning surprise that someone from her background's demonstrating racist behaviour anyway? Didn't we all realise it went on? The tidy pile of cash she made from being a fuckwit on telly a few years ago aside, Jade's not been given the greatest of lives, and we all surely remember the basic principle that those at the bottom of society's untidy feudal pyramid tend to find other people they think they're above, don't we? The headlines last week may as well have read 'Underpriviliged Person Displays Characteristics Found In Many Of Same Ilk', perhaps with another article further down the page about the forest-based defecatory activities of certain ursine mammals chiefly found in the temperate-to-cold areas of the northern hemisphere. Compare Goody with our island-based racist, and we find a girl who's just been given the best education money can buy (presumably, by damnable fine British teachers, eh, Farquar? Too right, Quentin) and for whom, one would expect, university careers and God-knows-what-else beckon. So, class: whom do we think we should show more concern about? I think it's pretty clear which of the reality TV choices is more important, nationally, here. Also, the same one's got more boobies and bikinis.

Cast your vote by pulling on the appropriate lever while singing the Star Spangled Banner and holding your left shoe above your head and leaning to one side as though a slight gale was assaulting you.