Bye Bye Big Brother

Well, one of today's "headline stories" is that Channel 4 has decided to axe "Big Brother".

Needless to say, I'm gutted, devastated, distraught and tearful. Not.

I believe I may, just possibly, be the only person on the planet not have actually seen it other than the send up of it in "Doctor Who" and clips on "8 Out of 10 Cats".

If the latter is anything to go by, we're well rid of it. It looked like a hysterical fame-for-the-sake-of-it nobody-fest where people were lauded for being nothings and nobodies, as opposed to being admired for climbing Everest, sailing around the world, singing beautifully, curing diseases or making people safer.

It is perhaps lost in the mists of time now that Channel 4 was set up to provide an alternative, complementary service of original programming of a type which would never normally go to air on a commercial television network. Jeremy Isaacs forged it in its early days as something quite unique.

"In today's multi-channel environment" as the mantra goes, this is the sort of thing which is more necessary, not less.

Big Brother? Good riddance to bad rubbish.