Holly’s humongous hooters!

Lest there be any misunderstanding, I am of course referring in my post title to the inordinate amount of maternity leave taken recently by Holly Willoughby from ITV1’s flagship weekday magazine programme This Morning. I mean, what a hoot! You’ve got to hand it to her… the sheer audacity of the woman. She managed to conceive the child so that her time off ‘work’, post childbirth, would run straight into her summer break. Talk about having it made. And, presumably, all the time she would be on a retainer. How else can you account for the fact that, every show, she looks as though she’s stepped straight from a clothing catalogue? Every edition, a different outfit - each designed to show off her assets! If only all mothers had the luxury of being paid to bring up a family on money that’s ostensibly for presenting a television series. I’m sure there isn’t a person in the world who wouldn’t love a similar, all-expenses-paid, protracted holiday!

Holly Willoughby isn’t the first television ‘personality’ to hustle herself some extended paid leave. Natasha Kaplinsky pulled the same trick on Channel 5. No sooner had she acquired the plum position of presenting the early evening news than she, too, took maternity leave. Following her return to work, she ‘fell’ pregnant again and needed more time away. After delivering her second child, she quit her post as the station’s news anchor having presented hardly anything while on the job, so to speak! And, now, Jenni Falconer’s at it! This onetime GMTV presenter filled in on This Morning for Willobooby, as idiot Keith Lemon refers to her (I wonder what’s the key to Holly’s success?!), during her time out. I imagine Falconer will also return, in her case to the BBC’s lottery-presenting game - once the services of a nanny have been acquired. I recommend Alan Sugar, or at least someone with similar inclinations, head one or other of these broadcasting corporations in order to stamp out the abuse of such privileges! Ask these women, before they’re offered a prestigious post in live media, if they intend having a family.

And what are Holly’s qualifications to front This Morning anyway, pregnant or otherwise? Like her co-presenter, Phillip Schofield, she started out in children’s television. Nothing wrong with that except it doesn’t necessarily make you a serious journalist! Some of the subjects that arise on the programme make her unsuitable for the job. She can deal with the fluff alright. She’s in her element discussing all the latest soap updates or X Factor shite. But when it comes to dealing with serious stories like serial killer Fred West or interviewing nurse Rebecca Leighton in connection with saline poisoning, Holly hardly says boo to a goose. Schofield isn’t much better, to be honest, desperately attempting a grim expression while Booby checks to see if her tits are still there! There’s almost a sense of relief when the programme repeats the competition for the umpteenth boring time. Treating the viewer with a considerable degree of respect, to help ‘steal’ the cash required to pay the presenters’ inflated salaries, a question is patronisingly posed for which you might win the princely sum of £25,000 (for the price of a premium rate phone call!)… Who has the biggest breasts on daytime television - is it A) Jeremy Kyle, B) Matthew Wright, or C) Holly Willoughby?

All Change?

It’ll probably come as no surprise that I’m glad to see the back of “GMTV”. In Fiona Phillips and Kate Garraway, ITV1’s newly-defunct breakfast show spawned the two worst-ever female presenters on British television. I think they like to think of themselves as journalists despite lacking any of the traits that just might qualify them for such a position. It didn’t matter who Phillips was interviewing, Gordon Brown or Robbie Williams, she would always conclude with a “well, alright!” She might as well have said, “now shut up, you’ve had your three minutes!” And, Lord knows how many cups of coffee Garraway consumed before going on air each morning?! She always seemed to be on some kind of adrenaline rush, ecstatic over the most trivial of things. Recently Phillips was replaced by Emma Crosby. She wasn’t as bad as the other two but irritated me, quite early on, by not getting Peter Davison’s surname right. Not once, but twice! When he returned, some months later, to promote something new, Ms Crosby was still calling him Davidson. There really is no excuse. She spent most of the final morning leaving viewers straining to see whether or not she was wearing any knickers, so short was her skirt and so ungainly her position!

The trouble is ITV are replacing “GMTV” with something that promises to be equally as tatty, “Daybreak”. The new show’s presenters have absconded from BBC One in a flurry of media speculation but my expectations are not great. I’ve never watched an entire edition of “The One Show” but have seen Adrian Chiles on “The Apprentice” spin-off and he’s just so bloody boring I can’t understand why he’s on TV at all? I’m led to believe he’s some sort of football pundit so perhaps he’s the new Eamonn Holmes. God help us. Better make sure we’re all HD ready as television these days is completely unmissable. Judging from the trailers, Chiles’ co-presenter, Christine Bleakley, looks like being about as unwelcoming as her surname suggests. The changes are entirely cosmetic. It’s like changing a channel name from Virgin1 to Channel One where the output remains the same. What’s the point? And I hear that Kate Garraway is remaining anyway, to give us insightful interviews with all the Hollywood glitterati. Lorraine Kelly keeps her 8.30am slot too, although, after seventeen years, she was noticeably absent during the final weeks of “GMTV”. This last week saw pretty Myleene Klass confidently, but superficially, sitting in for Kelly which is only worth mentioning because I refuse to post a picture of either garrulous Garraway or the preposterously pretentious Phillips.