dark beige

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you what happened last night, the strangest, most wonderful experience of my life. I was just turning in for the night, at around a quarter past eleven, having enjoyed a DVD viewing of Jim Davidson: Red, White and Very Blue. Well, I’m hardly going to watch that muck that passes for "entertainment" on the telly these days am I? Shows about gay asylum seekers, or disabled nurses, all set up north. It makes me sick!

Anyway, there I was, just dozing off, dreaming of the old tuppence ha’penny shows at Margate pier when all of a sudden I heard a very strange noise. I sat bolt upright, and fuck me! Do you know what I saw? Only a big green alien!

I tried to speak to it to tell it to piss off back to its own country and stop scrounging off our state, but the truth is, I couldn’t say a word, no matter how hard I tried. It seemed to have me in some kind of mental hold. Next thing I knew, I was being whipped away to another place with my new green chum. Well, my mind was. My big gormless body was still in the bed, feeling trussed up like a proper turkey!!

Anyway, suddenly we were in this strange, weird world, where everyone was wearing suits that seemed to be made out of foil, and instead of driving cars, they sort of glided on these things that were a bit like surfboards except they had seats on them so you could sit down. And there were no dogs anywhere – they must have died out. You’ve guessed it – I was in the future!

Next thing I know, I was in this bizarre room, with everyone looking forward at this empty space, so I did the same. What I saw over the next hour was greater than anything I’ve ever seen before or since. One after another, a series of amazing acts came up and occupied that empty space, leaving us watching in total rapture, we were so entertained.

There was a magician who thrilled us all when he disappeared a guy from the audience – who ended up backstage! There was proper traditional comedy from Jethro, who I was delighted to see is still going strong, as well as the head of Jim Davidson, which had been welded to a robot body. His movement’s a bit clunky, sure, but his act ain’t lost any sharpness, I can tell ya! There were beautiful dancing girls, pop acts for the kids, some showtime tunes for us oldies, you name it! And before you Guardian readers start bleating, it weren’t racist: some yella fella did some amazing karate, smashing a cement slab on his little bonce!

And then it occurred to me! I was seeing the future – and it looked incredibly similar to a good old-fashioned variety show! It was like being back at The Palladium in ’76! Variety is the future of entertainment!

So what of it, BBC? And you, ITV? Faced with this overwhelming evidence that the future of television is variety, will you finally embrace it, and stop all this tawdry reality nonsense, get that mincer Graham Norton off the telly and replace all these flouncing makeover no-marks with decent acts like Jethro and Roy Chubby Brown?