American Horror Story

You can keep your Real Housewives OC/Atlanta/New Jersey/Beverly Hills.  The REAL American housewife is Georgia's Mama June from TLC's Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.  A robust redneck who actually has a red neck due to the constant rubbing of her many chins.  Hubba Hubba!

June is a 21st century Southern Belle-tent. She lives in a hog pen, next to a railway siding, with her litter of piglets.  She can't work due to a condition called 'fork lift foot'.  An accident at the local  Piggly Wiggly has left her with dead toes infested with silverfish.  Thankfully the rotting appendage is kept well hidden in an old trainer sock that hasn't ever seen the inside of a washing machine.  Shame she doesn't have any coupons for Dettol or Scholl foot powder in her vast collection.  Even Dr Christian from Embarrassing Bodies would struggle to hold down his lunch.

Her baby piglet is a frightful pageant princess who lives on a diet of cold hot dogs and spaghetti with ketchup and butter sauce.  Alana's pageant talent seems to involve farting and rubbing her flabby belly at the stony faced judges like a vertically challenged stripper.  Think Shirley Temple on crack cocaine.

There's two sisters called Pumpkin and Chubbs and they are the living embodiment of the expression 'you are what you eat'.  Mama June feeds her guzzling girls from a trough.  Well it's actually something she calls a Multi-Meal.  It consists of grabbing anything and everything from the fridge and throwing it in a huge tin foil roasting dish with butter, BBQ sauce and full fat mayo.  In this house the kitchen utensils are mainly used as back scratchers or to pick up chicken droppings from the living room carpet so she mixes it all together with her bare hands. 20 minutes in a medium oven and serve with baked beans, tinned sweetcorn and more butter.   Nigella she ain't.

The eldest girl is called Chickadee and somehow she's managed to maintain a petite figure despite this tsunami of lard and carbs.  As slim blondes must be as scarce as hen's teeth in Georgia she's popular with the local teenage tom cats and delivered her own kitten called Kaitlyn on Halloween before her 17th birthday.  It's the Circle of Life only more grubby than the Disney version.

Mama June got married recently to her long suffering Sugar Bear.  A small toothless miner with an obsession for garden ornaments.  It took Sugar Bear 10 years to woo his woman.  June was always playing hard to get.  I can't think why.  She wouldn't commit but he wore her down with a romantic date at Bigshow's Burgers.  She wanted Rhett Butler but got Bilbo Baggins in a baseball cap instead.

Last but not least we have Uncle Poodle.  Sugar Bear's gay brother.  A homosexual hillbilly who doesn't say much but minces around the house teaching the piglets Spice Girl dance routines and offering fashion tips like a white trash Gok Wan.

It may be an American Horror Story but I bloody love this show.  It's like The Waltons on moonshine and donuts but there's more genuine love, warmth and fun in a half hour of Honey Boo Boo than in 9 years of The Kardashians.  Mama June is the real deal and I love her pearls of wisdom and her view of the world.  There is a heart to this show that makes you root for this family despite their faults.  You laugh with them and feel touched by their simplicity.  It would be easy to watch them with an air of disdain and superiority but this is a family full of love and honesty and they just enjoy life and being with each other.  They may be poor, but in some respects they're richer than Kim, Khloe and Kourtney will ever be.

I love you Mama June x

What a bummer!

Thank God Celebrity Big Brother is over! 3 weeks of intense viewing and I'm a wreck.  The best series ever and an emotional roller coaster from the minute they handcuffed Jim Davidson to Linda Nolan whilst we were still nursing our Hogmany hangovers.

The show was a PR coup for Davidson and Dappy. Two men with a chequered past who took a massive gamble but played the public just right to emerge as our winner and runner up.  Within the space of 3 weeks it became almost a crime to have a bad word to say about the poor downtrodden old man and the performing monkey. Did the leopards really change their spots or are we so sucked into celebrity and marketing that we're blinded by what we're served up on our 50" HD screens every night.

It's ironic that an immature doofus like Lee Ryan has become the most hated man in the UK for falling for 2 pretty girls in the house.  While Davidson and Dappy are now hailed as the people's champions, Ryan is getting death threats on Twitter.  How did that happen?

It seems that fame has a strange affect on us these days.  Violent and immoral behaviour is ignored if you're bankable or have a level of sporting prowess.  If you're good at making movies or can kick a ball quite well then the public and your peers will happily turn a blind eye and bestow you with plaudits for what you can do on the screen or on the sports field.  This is particularly prevalent in the world of football where the terraces will forgive any crimes and misdemeanours until a 'hero' transfers to another team.  Then the pitchforks are out and the baying mass of matching woolly hats attack them like they'd just strangled a basket of puppies.

50 years ago a government was brought down because an MP was shagging a topless model.  How did our morals and standards change so dramatically over two generations?

Talking of low standards.  I tuned in to Splash last night.  Vernon and Gabby have about as much on screen chemistry as a couple of ironing boards.  Poor Tom Daley is never quite sure where the auto-cue is so he's relegated to posing in his wet Speedos and trying hard not to look at Keith Duffy's bulge.  Keith was there for the Craic and he didn't let us down. His crack was bared on both dives as his skimpy trunks slipped off as he plunged into the pool.  I bet they were high fiving in the production box. Isn't that the only reason for having that underwater camera?  Tom disappeared for about 20 minutes.  No doubt rewinding that shot on his iPhone in the loo.

Gabby kept saying you could feel the tension in the pool.  Such a shame that doesn't transfer to the viewers.

Why are we obsessed with watching famous people doing stuff badly? Does it make us feel good about ourselves?  We'd rather watch Danielle Lloyd belly flop and bruise her tits than be made to feel inferior by some dedicated athlete striving for perfection.

And that brings me to The Jump.  Channel 4's new hit celebrity show.  Davina McCall mugging to the camera with a bunch of reality TV whores in day-glo spandex.  The show is built around a final death defying ski jump.  The trouble with this concept is that the final jump-off looks about as scary as stepping off a pavement. Why the hell did Sir Steven Redgrave sign up for this?  One of our greatest sporting heroes reduced to racing down a hill with Anthea Turner on a dinner tray.  Maybe he just got his 2013 tax bill?

Last and probably least is the new and revamped series of The Voice. The first 2 series didn't go well. Something had to done.  They got rid of the annoying woman and the irritating no-name on the end.  Trouble is they've replaced them with another annoying woman and an equally irritating band boy.  I LOVE Kylie but she should never have exposed herself on this dire show. Her outrageous flirting with the male contestants is just cringe-worthy.  However the main problem with this show is the 'voice'.  I don't know where the production team get these people from.  I guess there's not a queue banging on the door for a show that has no interest in a performer beyond the final programme.  Maybe if The Voice does manage to find a star there might be a few more decent singers showing up at the auditions.  A pair of tone-deaf twins,  a wailing shoe artist covered in oranges and an old busker with the wife on a flute. The Voice....my arse.