What we did on our holidays:
Watched Quiz TV, mainly.

I'm not a lonely person (much). I've been socialising pretty much all week.

But I absolutely can't bring myself to change channel from Quiz TV (632 on Sky, 633 NTL 5pm - 2am). I have it on in the background all evening when I'm in. I've had it on in the background whilst reading a book. I've been listening to a dozy Essex bint named Jordan talk to the camera non-stop for the last two-and-a-half hours, with only the occasional twenty second phone call to punctuate it every few minutes. On occasion the host will have a chat with the gallery talking to them in their ear, asking them how they'd spend the money. I have never phoned them up.

It should be rubbish.

I am utterly, utterly addicted.

It's somewhere between madness and genius. Production wise it works on the same sort of basis on Channel 5 quizzes Brainteaser and Memory Bank, they don't cost anything to produce because the money they make from the phone-in competitions actually covers the entire cost of the production. Here, there is a puzzle on the screen, if you know the answer you make a 60p phone call (or you could play for free via the web, otherwise it'd be subject to gambling laws, you see?) and the computer every couple of minutes selects someone to come through to the studio. If they get it correct, they win the money on offer for the quiz (usually starting at about £25) and get to play for big money on the jackpot (predicting which one of two paddles has a "move up" symbol behind it eight times in succession). If they get the puzzle wrong then they take another call a few minutes later. After they've made enough money from the phone calls they put the prizemoney up, and on particularly difficult and blatantly unfair quizzes it could get up to about £2,000. They'll make sure the money gets given away because they'll change the quiz to something really easy towards the end of the air time and roll the cash over to it.

It should be the equivalent of watching paint dry, and yet somehow many of the hosts are just about engaging enough to just about pull it off. And one of the production assistants controls a silent hand puppet sheep called Chops who dances along to the ambient background music.

Often on an evening you get home from work and you will quite happily plump for the path of least resistance in a bid to relax. Well you don't find many paths offering less resistance than Quiz TV. Whatsmore to the trained eye there isn't much difference between it and Nine Live, currently eating up space on E4 during the morning. And yet they couldn't be more wrong, despite Nine Live having far more experience (beginning in it's native Germany) it's nowhere near as much fun.

I need help to break out of it. There have been several evenings during the holiday week where I've wanted to do something constructive and have actually thought "sod it" and put Quiz TV on. It's just not good for a man.

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