James Delingpole James Delingpole

Why watching Britain’s Got Talent is like giving yourself a lobotomy

issue 01 June 2013

The kids are back for half-term so we’re having to watch absolute crap again on TV. Monday night, I wanted to watch The Fall (BBC1). But I couldn’t, obviously, because Britain’s Got Talent (ITV1) was on.

‘Dad! Dad! You’ve got to see this!’ So I come in to see what I’ve got to see and it’s a man called Aaron Crow whose unique and remarkable skills are that he never speaks, he has an interesting haircut, and he does mildly scary magic tricks which aren’t quite as good as Dynamo’s. Also he pronounces his name ‘Aran’ — as in sweater. Is this some other annoying new trend I didn’t know about? Kids being unable to pronounce ‘Aaron’ in the same way they think the word ‘worry’ rhymes with ‘lorry’?

Problem is, it’s amazing how quickly you get sucked in, like performing an instant auto-lobotomy.

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