SO, some television phone-ins are a rip-off and some companies employ their own staff to act as game show contestants.

Blimey, next they'll be telling us that Coronation Street and EastEnders aren't real; and that there is a point to Patrick Kielty.

(Incidentally, rumour has it there is an as-yet-undiscovered tribe living deep in the heart of the Amazon jungle that was genuinely surprised when Louis Walsh was dumped from the panel of X Factor judges.

In a perfect world, entertainment would be entertaining, but it's a far from perfect world.

Instead, we're bombarded with endless entertainment that simply isn't.

Even the news isn't immune - as increasingly glamorous news presenters interview increasingly glamorous reporters about stories that are frequently only stories because they are accompanied by arresting (but invariably non-specific) images.

This is cultural narcissism at its most rampant - the media celebrating itself. Forever.

I know entertainment is necessarily subjective, but I fail to see how a husband and wife trying to guess the identity of something described by a viewer is at all entertaining.

While we're about it, where's the entertainment in watching a bunch of people who are famous for being famous and little else cooped up in a house for days on end where they get gnarly with each other?

And who was the only winner in the mountain-out-of-a-molehill Celebrity Big Brother race row?

The production company of course, so well done Endemol.

I'm sure it is purely coincidental that Telefonica, the Spanish telecoms group, has announced it is to sell its 75 per cent stake in Endemol now that the share price has doubled.

Still, perhaps society gets the popular culture it deserves and the only real surprise is that we're still surprised.