The price of nice
Before I managed to drag myself out of the flat this afternoon, I idly switched on the television to see if anything presented a good enough case for me not venturing into the outside world. As it was the middle of the afternoon, and with Diagnosis Murder taking a break at the moment, perhaps unsurprisingly there wasn't

However, what did catch my eye was a new show on ITV called "The Intervention". My skin crawled at the title alone. It's so, so, so... interventionist! So anti-libertarian, apart from anything else. But how could I not just give it five minutes of my time?

Big mistake.

The basic premise is that this oleaginous, interfering, shit-talking, and most likely disingenuous Irish counsellor (who subsequent research shows to be a Harley Street practitioner called Beechy Colcough, and whose nationality is included only to give you a full picture of the demon we're dealing with) - who's obviously meant to be something of a celebrity among those with "issues" - spends half an hour telling someone what's wrong with them, whether they want to hear it or not. He pokes his nose in for the good of the patient, without caring how they might feel about this uninvited impromptu counselling session. Beechy also manages to conduct himself in quite the most condescending manner I've ever seen on TV.

(I'm aware of the many parallels there are between what I've just written about Beechy and Tony Blair's government, but that's a separate issue.)

Today's victim, sorry, client was Rik Waller, the very fat contestant from Pop Idol, who was being told by the therapist and his own family why he had to lose weight in order to love himself and stop seeking approval and fulfilment in other people's opinions of him.

I won't deny that Rik is probably in great need of this kind of therapy (nor that I probably relate to one or two of the issues), but does it have to be on national television? If anything I'd have thought that would make the poor boy feel worse. He's already tried confronting his tubby turmoil on telly once before (in the endearingly-titled 'Fat Club') and that, if anything, appeared to set him back.

What rubbed me up the worst, though, was Beechy's constant repetition of the phrase that he felt best embodied Rik's poor state of health and how it was caused by his search for self-worth in other people. "that's the price of nice, Rik. The price of nice."

What? What's the price? Being fat? Feeling shit? How exactly has that moved anyone on? That, and a couple of good connections, were the most Beechy was able to offer Rik. Therapy in a soundbite. Kounsel-U-Kwik - mental massage while you wait. A half-hour of drivel that probably hasn't helped anyone save Beechy's bank balance and, hopefully, the therapee.

My point? I don't think there is one, other than the fact I had to share the rage. And maybe that's enough. Thomas always says I get angry about the small things so I don't have to confront the big issues - maybe that's true. In the meantime, one of the functions of this blog, and you people who read it, are my therapy. I'm not feeling down, I just wanted to say thank you for putting up with me. Please just don't ever call yourselves Beechy.