Stay indoors if you value your wallet

Its back, its that time of year again, its the night to stay indoors rather than visit anywhere that could possibly attract another member of the public - because that other random member of the british public is likely today to ask you for money.

Back in the days when I could always be found in The Fox every friday night, this is the one night of the year when I would stay in the house, and like a fool I would watch the blanket BBC coverage called "Children In Need", from 7pm right through to the early hours of the morning I would sit there like an idiot and watch other idiots make idiots of themselves and call it "entertainment" - then they would, at regular intervals, tell me where to send money, all of my money.

It still hurts to confess that for several years my wife rang the freephone numbers and left my credit card details with instructions to take whatever amount they liked out of my account.

It won't happen tonight.

This afternoon I will close the office at 4pm as per usual and ajourn to The Fox where myself and my good lady will partake of some fine real ale and stuff some extremely palatable food down our gullets for a couple of hours at which point we will scurry from the place before the students get there with their fancy dress and begging bowls.

The stuff on BBC1 tonight will be to its usual low standard, already I have heard of a team of newscasters paying a musical tribute to James Bond - for christ sake no - and ex-spice girl Emma Bunton has recorded the "official" C-I-N record this year, a remake of Petula Clark's "Downtown" which only serves to highlight just how pointless remakes of old classics can be, the spice girl with the weakest voice manages to make herself and her record sound exactly like Petula Clarks 1965 recording , in fact I think they may have saved money by using the old backing track and the whole thing leaves you with just one word in mind - "why ?"

The TV show itself is, as always, as it has been since 1863, presented by Terry Wogan, the now officially unfunny Radio 2 presenter. Terry Wogan's breakfast radio show was original and amusing in 1972 but unsuprisingly the exact same format wore thin many years ago and the same goes for his year-on-year presentation of the C-I-N tv programme.

However tonight he will apparently, along with some posh totty, present the winner of a competition to find the new voice of the speaking clock (that alone is surely worth staying in for tonight), so-called music from McFly (seen them last week, offer zero to music heritage), Girls Aloud (watch for the ginger haired one, I just think "council house mongrel" every time), Sugababes ( who they), Westlife and several other bland stars of the popular music genre who will perform and then mention their forthcoming christmas single as instructed by their agent.

Oh yes, and David Cassidy.

But the worst, most cringeworthy parts of the whole evenings dross are the several sections where "stars" of soap operas appear to sing, or dance, or do a party piece, and Terry Wogan and his audience pretend that they were very good and please send some money or we'll get them back on again - tonights offering is predictable and I didn't even need to look it up on the web site to state that the cast of Corrie Street, Holby City, Bad Girls and Hollyoaks will all be "doing a turn" and mentioning the time and date of their next episode.

Is that really the worst bit ?

No, actually the worst bit is the parade of London's West End musical actors who turn up at the studio and do a quick turn from their current productions - Shepherds Bush must have a queue of actors in various musical costumes stretching all the way around the corner all night as these mercenaries bid to grab five minutes on the show and mention which theatre they are appearing at, what time is curtain up, and seats in all parts still available, its a busy night for theatrical agents and limousine drivers.

Fortunately tonight sees Emmerdale and two episodes of Coronation Street on ITV (how do they do Corrie Street and still appear on C-I-N at the same time), and for once I will be grateful that the women in our house choose the TV programmes that I watch.