Like most people, I get immense pleasure from seeing a child cry. Oh, how I love to watch the tears roll down their little faces! I also love seeing the mentally ill being publicly humiliated - well, who doesn't? Unfortunately, it has become less and less acceptable to seek out and publicly mock infants and the disabled.
Thank God for Britain's Got Talent! Finally, we are free to laugh at the disadvantaged without being shunned by our peers. I literally cannot think of a better Saturday night's television than watching a quartet of millionaires sat behind a desk sneering at the disillusioned, disadvantaged and disturbed. Each episode allows you to cackle with glee as a stream of human beings' hopes and dreams are destroyed in front of the entire nation - what could be more heart-warming than that?
The judges are what really make the show what it is - after all, who could possibly be a better judge of "talent" than Amanda Holden? Her role in that programme about hairdressers is widely regarded as the greatest character portrayal of all time. Presumably the sheer strength of this performance is why we've not seen her act in anything since then.
Simon Cowell is brilliant. I love the way he sneers at the inept auditionees for "wasting his time" - how dare they? I mean, it's not like he gets paid millions for his appearance on the show! And the contestants certainly aren't pre-screened by producers before they're sent out onto the stage!
The star-power of the judging panel has really been upped this year, however, with the addition of Alesha Dixon. Yes, the greatest female artist of the millennium - I'm sure we all remember her smash-hit single "Knockdown" which reached the dizzying heights of number 45 in the UK charts.
Britain's Got Talent does an amazing job of bringing the Victorian 'freak show' concept into the 21st century, and the culture of the UK is truly richer now that we can take pleasure from the humiliation of strangers from the comfort of our own living rooms!
