There's little better, when you've had the day from Hell, than coming home and watching salespeople try to sell products which have been specifically designed and manufactured to be completely unsaleable. Or psychics, tuning into the energy that is blind, hopeless, panic-stricken conjecture. It's all there at the push of a button, in the exciting world of 'disposable TV'.
The shopping channels, the psychic shows - anything which exists only in the moment and is, at least in the hope of its presenters, forgotten by the following day. To me, these live, here-and-gone programmes are worth a billion movies, or comedies, or dramas. This is not the over-dramatic and criminally verbose output from a scriptwriter's inkjet. It's real people, living real nightmares, in full view of the entire nation.
As a celebration of these often unsung televisual productions, I've compiled a Top 20 of genuine UK 'disposable TV' quotes from my diary. The quotes are in no particular order. They were just the ones which stood out, as I picked them. Many thanks to all those whose names appear below (and to those whose names I couldn't establish), for these nuggets of entertainment, and many, many more.
Adele Sica, Price Drop TV: "This, is a hearing aid... Sorry... THIS, IS A HEARING AID!!!..."
Danielle Fearnon, running out of conventional sales patter on Bid TV: "I am daring you to buy this".
'Psychic' performing live reading on Psychic Interactive: "There's an issue around you regarding skirts. Either you do normally wear them or you don't".
Paul Evers on Price Drop TV, discussing Matt Hayes fishing DVD: "He's a master angler, and he's a master baiter".
Chloe Everton, Bid TV: "I can throw a grape right up high in the air and make it land in my mouth. Why is it that men can't pee into a toilet without getting it all over the floor?"
Debbie Greenwood on QVC, trying to gloss over a potential drawback with a ring: "I'd never notice - unless I actually looked at it."
Danielle Fearnon, Bid TV: "This (handbag) has been lightly knackered... Lacquered! The only thing here that's knackered is me."
Weather forecaster Daniel Corbett, BBC News channel: "The wet weather's going to linger like guests who arrive for Sunday lunch and they're still there on Thursday."
'Psychic' performing live reading on Psychic Interactive: "...There's something happening with something in your life."
Jerilee Bonner, Rocks & Co: "Cuprian Tourmaline is considered as valuable as Paraiba... but Paraiba is more expensive."
Lucia Diamond, presenter, Psychic Zone: "I sent a text message to one of our psychics, just to see if he was still on the game, which he was."
Nicola George on Bid TV, preparing to slash a price: "I am now going to do something obscene!"
Claire Stuart, addressing viewers on Price Drop TV: "You all come in once the price is right, don't you? You're like flies around..."
Special guest sales guy on Ideal World: "D'you know what my ambition is?... To build a golf course, as a tribute to this ring."
Claire Sutton, QVC: "Let me just go through the colours... the brown skirt is actually the orange one, and if you want to order this blue, white and mauve shirt, it's the black option."
Adam 'Saturn' Leonard, Psychic Interactive: "I'm tuning into the areas of the body related to emotion - mainly the heart and stomach areas."
James Russell, Price Drop TV: "The sun seems to come up earlier since we put the clocks back."
QVC presenter Alison Keenan, to guest: "You were a model, and you still look good - EVEN NOW!"
Gem hunter Tony Diniz, painting a subtly poetic picture of limited stock on Rocks & Co: "If you don't see this ring again then tough sh*t."
A texter contacting the Psychic Zone Chinese New Year special: "What will happen with me and my man? He is a pig and I am a dog."
