THANK God that's over. I'm A Celebrity...Get me Out Of Here! - the final proof that the world has gone stark raving mad - is off our screens and I can reclaim my rightful place in the lounge.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, you have my sincere congratulations for displaying such restraint and good taste.

But every night lately, my wife has hogged the telly to watch Jordan, Kerry, Johnny, Razor and the rest of the motley crew flirting, arguing, posturing and doing unthinkable things in the jungle.

OK, it wasn't all bad. I'm no different to the millions of other dads who were forced to watch with their wives and, if I'm completely honest, I'd have pushed Lord Brocket out of the way to help sponge down Alex Best's g-stringed bottom after it got covered in maggots. It was the only honourable thing to do.

But apart from that it was television at its worst. Especially that bushtucker trial in which Jordan - her with a bra that doubled as a hammock - and eventual winner Kerry McFadden had to eat loads of live creepy crawlies to earn their jungle chums a decent supper.

I had to take my tea into the kitchen to avoid throwing up as the two blondes swallowed squirming witchety grubs, cockroaches, stick insects and green ants. A giant fish eye was the only meal which proved too much for Jordan, but after stomaching Peter Andre's slimy advances for so long, she's obviously physically incapable of feeling sick.

This particularly horrible bushtucker trial was not unlike the family Sunday lunch we'd sat down to earlier that day. That is not meant to be critical in any way of my wife's cooking. She has Sunday lunch off to a fine art, even if she does have to buy the Yorkshire puddings from a supermarket freezer.

No, this is more about our desperate attempts to get 13-year-old Christopher to eat broccoli. The doctor says he has to eat broccoli because he has an iron deficiency caused by a diet of chips, pizza and not a lot else.

He has to eat two 'trees' of broccoli with his Sunday lunch before he's allowed to leave the table. Naturally, he puts them on a separate plate so the rest of his lunch isn't contaminated.

"Eat your broccoli," orders Mum.

"Do I really have to?"

"You know you do."

He then sits and looks at it as if it's a detested enemy, or a gun loaded with a single bullet for a deadly game of Russian roulette.

After staring at it for at least five minutes, he coats the first tree with butter to make it slightly less stomach-churning. Eventually, he shuts his eyes tight, takes a deep breath, shoves it into his mouth, chews and swallows hard with the aid of a glug of water.

Even then it doesn't go down without a fight. You can almost hear it screaming: "No, no I'm not really edible - you're making a big mistake."

When it's finally gone, with the aid of several more glugs of water, he has tears in his eyes and a look on his face that suggests he's just witnessed a terrible accident.

"Well done, Christopher. One down, one to go - take your time," I find myself saying, like a reassuring Ant or an understanding Dec.

Then he squares up to the second tree, starting all over again with the stare of utter contempt.

So eat your heart out Jordan - this is what real courage is all about. A wriggling witchety grub, a juicy cockroach, a tickly stick insect, or a fat green ant are nothing. Broccoli is more disgusting than all of them put together.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

Cockerton Methodist Church Ladies Group are a lovely, friendly bunch.

President Christine Johnson recalled the time her daughter Gillian, five or six at the time, was playing with her friend Helen on the stairs.

Action Man and Cindy were getting married but the friends didn't know the right words for the wedding ceremony.

In the end Gillian blurted out: "We'll just say 'For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful'."

MOLLY Elsworth, also in the audience at Cockerton, passed on a story told by the Rev. Alan Coates, of Bondgate Methodist Church in Darlington.

It was about a little boy who got it into his head that there was a woman who had 16 husbands.

"Sixteen husbands?" he was asked.

"Yes - four richer, four poorer, four better and four worse."

WHEN he was little, Robert Edwards, of Hurworth, near Darlington, was going on holiday with mum Rose and dad Roger. It was a long journey in their posh camper van and they were playing I Spy. It was Robert's turn and he had his mum and dad struggling with something beginning with 'N'. Finally, they gave up.

"Nearly there," he said.

THE THINGS THEY SAY ABOUT THEIR DADS

"ONCE, on my birthday, he telephoned me in the middle of my party, pretending to be the fairy king. He told me there was a present wrapped in a rose petal at the bottom of the garden. My friends and I went tearing down there. Inside the rose petal was a golden bird cage with a tiny golden bird inside...There is nothing I can't deal with thanks to my Dad, nothing." - Spike Milligan's daughter Jane.

THE THINGS DADS SAY

TOUGH guy actor Bruce Willis, anticipating his daughters Rumer, 14, Scout, 11, and nine-year-old Tallulah starting dating: "I'll just kill the first boy as a warning to the others."

Published: 12/02/2004