Save Vernon.

Do you think Vernon Kay is aware of himself? In a way, I hope he isn't. It would be a nightmare dark and horrible enough to shatter the human mind to realise that you were, in fact, Vernon Kay. I certainly wouldn't wish being Vernon Kay on anyone.

I've just finished watching the opening 45 seconds of Beat The Star, Vernon Kay's ITV programme about people clapping while two other people play games. One is an ordinary man who works in a sugar factory in Yorkshire, the other is a famous celebrity that no-one in the world has ever heard of. The point of the show is this: whoever wins wins. It's not complex, thus Vernon Kay is our host.

I could only watch it briefly but still feel I can give an accurate account of Vernon. Yes, he looks like a Stepford TV Presenter but behind those mechanical, dead eyes is a tiny scream. A scream for help. A scream that is begging us all to remember when Vernon wanted to interview Morrissey or play the new single by Black Box Recorder while occasionally reminding us how good The La's were. He wants us to remember that when he started he wore jeans and had a stupid young haircut and didn't care if one of his laces was undone because he was more interested in talking to Richard Ashcroft. He wants us to remember that but we can't. We can't because it happened all too briefly. T4 told him to get a slightly better haircut and introduce a billion episodes of Friends and host ridiculously cheap balls ups like Cunt Island or Arsehole Castle. He didn't want to but T4 beat him and beat him and beat him until he said yes.

They demanded that he appear wholesome, clean-cut and, most importantly, mentally backward and after more beatings he complied. Soon ITV ran out of people to beat up so they asked Vernon Kay to host Family Fortunes, a game show that anyone who wanted to just play indie music and interview ex-members of The Stone Roses would definitely never want to do. But ITV beat him and beat him and beat him until he said yes. The Elders of Television found Vernon an equally beaten woman called Tess and forced them to marry. Neither wanted to marry the other and who could blame them? But the elders punched them and kicked them and battered them until they said "I do". Then when Vernon thought he could take no more, ITV laughed, wiped it's crusty, warty, bleeding cock on his hair and gave him Beat The Star.

He didn't want to do it but he had been so beaten, so damaged, so raped by ITV that he had no choice. He would do as they wished because he knew what would happen if he didn't. He was given a proper haircut, a nice suit and shoes that he had to keep laced while the cameras were on. They gave him a TV smile, a TV walk and a TV cheeky way of not being able to talk properly. He was perfect for Beat The Star. It was what he hosted and what had been done to him. A constant reminder. That's why, when he's telling us that we're in for a great hour of entertainment, we can look into his mechanical, dead eyes and see that screaming indie Vernon going mad in the prison that is himself.

Either that, or he really is a bellend. It's just a theory. And the stuff about him being beaten? That's just symbolism. In reality, TV companies simply offered him contracts for lots of money that he decided was much more important that things that he actually liked. That's all. I'm stopping giving Vernon Kay a second thought right........NOW.

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