Cher or Cher-alike?

"It's not the winning, it's the taking part." That hopeless, condescending aphorism that rings in the ears of every chubby, asthmatic kid on school sports day. All designed to encourage a sense of camaraderie and team spirit, rather than the venal every-man-for-himself mentality that defines a true champion. Maybe that's why we're just not very good at winning in the UK. Perhaps those P.E. teachers were simply too effective in encouraging everyone to have a go, irrespective of talent or inclination.

It's a cultural thing - just look at Murray Mount (or Henman Hill as it used to be known). All those hopelessly cheerful people waving their flags and gulping down their Marks & Spencers sausage rolls, knowing full well that they'll be heading home long before the final, much like the object of their misplaced affection. They shrug, shake off their picnic blankets, and make a mental note to book tickets for next year.

Our TV shows are no better. Take Big Brother for example. The only rule of the whole show is that contestants are forbidden from talking about nominations. That means no allegiances, no tactical voting, and certainly no expressing a desire to win. Yeah yeah, you're just "in it for the experience". In the States Big Brother is all about winning - in fact it's all they talk about. Because in the good old U.S of A, there are no prizes for second place.

But the most disturbing side-effect of this culture of also-rans, can be seen in shows like the X-Factor. Listen to the contestants in the run-up to the final and they'll even admit that they're not really in it to win it. They're smart enough to realise that all they really need from the show is sufficient exposure to secure an audience, then they can sign up with a smaller record label and make it "all about the music".

And it's precisely that nauseating naivete that is responsible for the abomination that is Cher Lloyd. Having risen to fame last year as Cheryl Cole's nominated assassination decoy, she's now ready to unleash her debut single on an unsuspecting world. You can grumble all you like about the anodyne pap being churned out by the winners of the X-Factor, but at least someone's happily providing soundtracks for dentists' waiting rooms and lifts up and down the country. And within six months, they'll be dropped by Cowell's sausage factory, free to return to a life of pain-free anonymity. It's the runners-up, the ones with aspirations of 'artistry', that you really have to worry about.

So what are we to make of Cher's 'Swagger Jagger'? Aside from the nonsensical title, which makes you long for the narrative coherence of the Cheeky Girls, it's all about showcasing Will.I.Am's Machiavellian influence. Coming across like a sink estate answer to the Black Eyed Peas, the track combines a shouty, tuneless verse with a chorus that riffs on 'Oh My Darling Clementine'. All blended together with the subtlety of a cut-and-shut Vauxhall Nova.

All through the X-Factor, the judging panel repeatedly asserted that Cher was exactly what the British public was crying out for. And I guess they were right, which is why 'My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding' was such a huge smash. Even so, it doesn't mean that anyone's going to rush out and buy 'Swagger Jagger'. But what would I know - I turned 36 last week, which means I'm old enough to be intimidated at a bus-stop by Cher and her hoodie-loving posse. Or I would be, if they didn't come across like a bunch of Pineapple Dance Studio rejects. They can strike all the poses they like, but I know they spent their weekend rinsing out Louis Spence's leg-warmers.

In fact, everything about the video, and the song itself, is utterly insincere. And for all her swagger (jagged or otherwise), there's something disingenuous about the big-haired faux-Fergie herself. The whole point of the song is that Cher's "haterz" are just jealous. That's why they're all so keen to steal her style. And yet, responding to negative reviews of her video over the weekend, Cher Tweeted "I have feelings. I come across as a hard faced bitch, but please give me a break. If someone can say that to me then they can say it to anyone! fight the bullies! Don't let them win! These people are not safe to be on the internet, many people are affected badly by this sort of behaviour!" Now, I may not be the world's foremost expert on the subject, but that doesn't sound much like swagger to me. Then again, my rhyming dictionary drew a blank when I looked up "petulant whining brat".

Leave me at home

Back in 1910, Winston Churchill (Tim Vine's main competition for the title 'King of the one-liner') said that the civilisation of a society can be judged by the way it treats its prisoners. A century later, the rules have changed - I believe that civilisation can be judged by what it's prepared to tolerate in the name of Saturday evening entertainment. If my contention is true, I fear we may all be living in caves and grunting at the moon by November.

Dating shows have always been a Saturday evening staple. Presumably, that's because the people who stay home to watch ITV, have long since left the meat market behind and settled into a life of mindless broadcasting and elasticated waistbands. If they ever find themselves fondly recalling the days when they were young, free and single, a show like Take Me Out reminds them that they're far better off trying to put the kids to bed and eating chicken jalfrezi out of a foil container.

Even so, it's hard to understand how anyone can happily sit through an entire hour of such mindless flirtation. Surely, if you were on the receiving end of such a graceless barrage of innuendo, you'd just close your eyes and wait for the rohypnol to kick in?

And yet every week, there's another line-up of willing contestants, with the kind of names that suggest their parents just reached into the green Scrabble tile bag and hoped for the best. It must be the easiest casting gig in the world - send a couple of production assistants to stand outside a GUM clinic with a giant butterfly net.

Given the raw materials they're working with, it's hardly surprising that what passes for wit on this show wouldn't give Stephen Fry any sleepless nights. Unless he's secretly spent half his life trying to perfect the armpit fart.

In reality, none of them are really there to find love, they're looking for a free trip to the enigmatically named 'Island of Love', Which is weird, because I always thought that Tenerife was the 'Island of burnt shins'. Blind Date suffered from the same problem - it tried to be a matchmaker show, but ultimately, it was just an easier way of getting a holiday than trying to navigate the Thomas Cook website.

It's a while since I've been clubbing (i.e. Whigfield was still in heavy rotation), but I clearly remember the horror of the witching hour - that awful moment when the lights finally came on and you realised you'd been flirting with Eric Stoltz from Mask. With precious few minutes to close the deal, you scan the dregs in the harsh light of almost-day, and take your pick. Now imagine doing that with a bovine studio audience mooing you on.

As if that wasn't bad enough, now some of the most 'popular' girls from the latest series of Take Me Out have appeared in Heat magazine without their warpaint. On the show, it's a case of hair by L'Oreal, face by Cuprinol - the untreated version is a million times worse. If their TV appearance is what you go home with, then this is what you'll be waking up with. And it's enough to drive you to a life of monastic contemplation.

I know, I know, I'm taking it all far too seriously. It's just a bit of fun. But that's what the travellers on My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding said about grabbing. Take Me Out? Take Me Out And Shoot Me, more like.

I have a dream...

When Popstars first reared its mis-shapen head back in 1999, TV executives around the world struggled to comprehend how the cripplingly outdated talent show format had managed to come back from the dead. During the seventies, they were all the rage, giving anyone with a vaguely discernible ability a couple of minutes on stage to show off their skills, before being eviscerated by a panel of judges who would usually jeer from the Royal box like Waldorf and Statler. But the novelty died out, along with all the overweight comedians who were as famous for their hardened arteries as they were for their casual racism.

Put it down to fortuitous timing - the new generation of karaoke contests came along just as the world shifted from fleeting interest to insatiable obsession with celebrity. Not only did these shows give us the chance to flex our critical muscles from the comfort of an armchair, they also peeled back the curtain and gave us a new insight into how a star is born manufactured.

The format is now such a staple of the schedules that you can turn on the TV in any week of the year, safe in the knowledge that you're just minutes away from seeing a preternaturally confident 19 year-old giving it some serious Mariah. Molesting the notes with a veracity that should see them put on the sex offenders' register, these young over-soulers don't care about the song, so much as showing the world their epiglottis for fifteen seconds at a time.

We sat through Popstars and Popstars: The Rivals, we cheered on Pop Idol, grew to love American Idol, grudgingly accepted The X-Factor, and even found place in our hearts for (Insert Country Here)'s Got Talent. But our TV overlords must have found that last mystical hour of broadcast space that isn't currently filled with a line-up of wannabes, and a judging panel of used-to-bes. And they're determined to fill it with a new addition to the evergreen format.

No doubt inspired by the huge viewing figures pulled in by My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, TV bosses are now keen to showcase the many talents of the British traveller community. Speaking to the Daily Star, Jake Bowers of the Gypsy Media Company, has been busy plugging a property he created called 'Traveller's Got Talent'. Sadly, punctuation may not be one of the skills to be showcased.

Bowers says "Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities are perceived to be guilty of many things, but capable of nothing. But the final and the regional finals that led up to it quash that myth. They have all demonstrated that Gypsy, Roma and Traveller young people, in particular, have talents, skills and abilities that are largely unrecognised by the world beyond their communities."

Hopefully, their abilities stretch beyond the world's most thorough caravan cleaning, and ordering a wedding gown so huge it needs planning permission. And at least when the successful applicants get invited to attend the national finals, the production company won't have to spring for hotel rooms during the finals. 

Given the criticisms levelled at MBFGW about how travellers were portrayed, throwing performers on a stage to be yelled at by an unforgiving audience is unlikely to help inter-community relations. Besides which, it's not as though the current raft of talent shows excludes travellers from taking part. Like any other minority community, acceptance has to come from integration rather than segregation. Travellers may well have talent, but it remains to be seen whether 'playing nicely with others' is one of them.