Stupid me

Thursday nights in October. With the quistlets packed off to bed and Mrs Quist out enjoying herself, I'd settle down to watch Never Mind the Buzzcocks - intellectual viewing at its finest. Here's the stupid bit coming up, so watch carefully. Blink and you'll miss it.

After Never Mind the Buzzcocks, I started seeing opening credits for a programme called Beautiful People. "Oh", I thought to myself, cunningly making my mind up in just a few seconds, "that must be some reality TV show or fly-on-the-wall thing about celebs". "How dull", I thought. "Let's turn over".

It took a stuffed elephant to put me right. The delightful Richard and Alex were apparently making a point of watching this programme. Having had the opportunity to look at (the cases of) some of their 2000+ DVDs I had a hunch that if they thought it was worth watching, it was at least worth a look.

And it was. I managed to catch the fifth episode, in which Simon tells how he and his friend Kylie, as 13 year olds in 1997 Reading, fall out over a hairstyle and are reunited over the death of Princess Di, all with a great supporting cast that includes Meera Syal as the blind "auntie" bunking up with the local flasher and Olivia Coleman, of Peep Show fame, as the brassy mum. It manages to be funny and bitter-sweet without going over the top.

To make up for my failure, I had to get the series DVD, which is now being watched with Mrs Quist and the quistlets (all of whom are enjoying it too). Now, you might think that certain themes in the show aren't suitable for primary school children. You might be right but, first, we're very bad parents and, second, I'm sure I read in the Daily Mail that four year olds are getting oral sex lessons at school these days so it's probably a bit late to worry.

So now I shall hang on for series two (if there isn't a series two, there'll be hell to pay) and no doubt fail to learn the valuable lesson about not judging a book by its cover or, in this case, a programme by its opening title sequence.