You're fired

Tonight I've been relegated to the other room while Becky watches the new series of The Apprentice. You could say I've been elevated as I get to relax in the old rocking chair while penning a blog listening to 6 Music while she watches the pantomime.

When you remove needless television from your evening it's striking how much time you actually have on your hands, even with two kids to contend with. Granted some nights I'm so knackered after work all I want to do is stare aimlessly towards the TV or the goggle box as my dad used to call it when I was a kid.

Back then he used to get stressed out by my apparent addiction to the television. Particularly when I used to sing along to all the adverts, finishing the jingles before they'd even really started.

And now as parents ourselves we face the same dilemmas with our own kids. Our six your old enjoys nothing more than grabbing my phone on a morning and going straight to the iplayer to find the latest episode of Dennis and Gnasher.

So should I be worried? Or is watching lots of telly, albeit on a four inch screen, just part of being young and growing up?

For what it's worth Dennis and Gnasher is far better than you'd think. Although Dennis is a whole lot less menacing than I remember from the Beano.

My mate Olly used to get a Beano in his weekly goody bag from his gran. He was happy to share his comics with me. The Mars Bar was another matter altogether.

When we weren't reading about Mini the Minx and the Bash Street Kids we were pretending to be radio DJs on two, one, O FM, recording our own voices onto TDK tape cassettes.

Roll forward 30 years and I here I am at last a real life presenter on local radio. Ok, granted it's only volunteering at BCB but I still get to play out my childhood dream every other week.

So anyway back to The Apprentice. How can a former PR man like me who was addicted to television when growing up find this light entertainment show so annoying? I think it's because each of the candidates is so willing to pretend to be a complete arsehole. "My intellect is like a jungle machete" says one. "I'll do anything to win. Manipulation. Cheat." Or appear on national telly looking like a complete knob?

But it's only TV. And the contestants are all consenting adults. Childish, charactures of themselves. But consenting adults nonetheless.

On which note I've successfully whiled away the last hour so can return to watch some mindless telly before going up to bed.

Good night :)