OH dear! Now we've reached the stage of voting Britain's most truly averagely-talented band Busted as The Record Of The Year 2004 (ITV1, Saturday). How is it possible when they are more manufactured than the Thunderbirds puppets they are singing about?

"I blame all those 12-year-old girls who have nothing better to do than play with their mobile phones on a Saturday night," said my wife. She also recalled the fact that, in the days of large black bricks sold by BT, our daughter was the one and only member of the family to have this form of communication. But conversations then tended to be of the "hello, I'm on the train" variety rather than contacting wild-eyed TV presenters desperately imploring us to waste our hard-earned cash on phone votes.

The fading I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! (ITV1, seemingly never-ending) produced the most gut-wrenching primetime TV seen in years as former Royal butler Paul Burrell actually ate a kangaroo's testicle in a Bush Tucker Trial. How he managed a full fish and chips supper later, without having his stomach pumped first, only those with House of Windsor inside knowledge will ever know.

Geordie presenters Ant and Dec didn't know whether to live or cry at the sight and a quick survey of office colleagues revealed that none of them could be bothered to watch anyway. Burrell still finished second to the increasingly scruffy-looking Joe Pasquale who managed his trademark "I know a song that'll get on your nerves" as he shared an underground coffin with water and half-drowned rats for five minutes.

"Why doesn't someone say something about all the cruelty to the creatures on this programme," said my other half as we also watched eels and goldfish being flushed into a muddy pit after Fran Cosgrave had them swimming around his head.

To be honest, I think more people have been phoning up to find out who Mr Cosgrave is. As I keep getting asked, all I can reveal is that he owns a club (not one borrowed from Fred Flintstone); has dated a member of Atomic Kitten and enhanced Jodie Marsh and does a bit of bodyguarding for Westlife.

"So how does that make him a celebrity?" queried Mrs Creature Feature who did enjoy one TV highlight this week as Sharon Osbourne's contestant Tabby was voted off The X Factor (ITV1, Saturday).

"Well that took the smile off Sharon's face because she's got no one in the final on Saturday," she said.

All I can say is that the winner of X-Factor - and my money is on Steve Brookstein, although G4 are starting to look ominously good - will be releasing a single with the intention of grabbing the No 1 spot for Christmas... and isn't that where we came in?