COUCH POTATO: Salon squabbles are anything but 'super'

We wouldn’t have the decent grasp it has given us of the world’s diverse places, cultures and wildlife.

I’d have to get a real job.

And we’d be completely unaware that Yvette Fielding’s feet have “no fungal STDs”.

Reassuring to everyone, I’m sure.

It’s one of the enduring revelations from a week in which six celebrities, each paired with a health and beauty trainee on a reality TV show, have been: “Getting into places where the sun has never shone.”

In other words, “Channel 5”, who can be blamed for commissioning one of the direst series of the year,

“This is Celebrity Super Spa,” announced co-host Laura Jackson, “where nothing is what it seems.”

Indeed. It’s not set in a “spa”, for one, rather a Liverpool hairdressing salon, where the relatively famous contestants perform treatments for the chance to win their young sidekick £10,000 and 12 months’ work experience.

The last thing it could possibly claim to be is “super”.

And as for the first constituent element of the programme title, well, I’ll let you be the judge.

Given a growth deficiency, and adding a member, the line-up could be a warped version of the Seven Dwarfs.

We’ve got Grumpy (chef John Burton-Race), Dopey (Shameless’s Jody Latham), Bossy (Most Haunted’s Yvette Fielding), Drippy (ex-Corrie actress Helen Flanagan), Towie (Arg from Towie) and Rustie (Lee).

So when salon manager Trisha opened proceedings by asking: “Would you please leave your celebrity status at the door because the only celebrity in this salon is the client,” there were puzzled looks.

None of them had even brought celebrity status to the door in the first place.

Trisha, though, isn’t the boss. That’s an intriguing character called Herbert Howe, who in a good light looks like the product of a one-night threesome in the 80s between Donald Trump, Joe Longthorne and Barry Gibb.

But I’m not about to knock him, or even the format particularly, despite the fact it’s rehashed virtually every reality show going, from Channel 4’s The Salon to The Apprentice’s pop-up shop task.

No, I’m reserving the pummelling for the celebrities who started sniping at each other the moment Helen Flanagan turned up for work two hours late on day one because she was having her hair done.

They would have some sympathy if they’d been able to hold it together during the tasks.

But faced with spray-tanning a topless woman or being confronted by a male model’s rear end for a back, sack and crack, most fell apart – Arg and Jody with embarrassment, Rustie into fits of hysterics, like an epileptic walrus.

You can imagine how much worse it got when Amy Childs showed up to teach them how to do a vajazzle (“beautifying genitalia”, for the uninitiated).

None of them, it seems, have grown mentally beyond a year-seven schoolkid learning about reproductive organs for the first time in human biology.

Burton-Race was a monstrous bully, Latham drew graffiti on a table and Fielding and Flanagan actually this argument on TV: “You should grow up.”

“Well, YOU should grow up.”

Beyond pathetic.

Most of the time they seemed to be delivering their own running verdict on the show: “This is a joke.” “This is so embarrassing.” “This is ridiculous.” “This is awful.”

And my favourite and most helpful line, from Laura Jackson: “Maybe they all should be in hiding.”

A humane suggestion that will no doubt fall on deaf ears.

So I’ll say it again.

Imagine a world without television.

Not so bad now, is it?

Spudulikes

X Factor’s talented band of brothers Next of Kin.

Brian McFadden tumbling A over T on Stepping Out.

The on-screen sparks that flew between Peaky Blinders’ Sam Neill and Cillian Murphy over an afternoon tea showdown.

This brutally honest and justified critique from a continuity man introducing alleged sitcom Father Figure: “Now on BBC1, Jason Byrne is a one-man disaster area.”

TLC’s quite extraordinary Superstars and Superfans, which followed elderly couple Ken and Jo Dobson to meet their idol, Paul Burrell, and ended up with the bizarre sight of Princess Diana’s ex-butler emerging from their wardrobe and snuggling into bed with them (no, really).

And Dragons’ Den’s Deborah Meaden telling a pair of entrepreneurs: “I’m afraid I’m about to say those two words...

“Regretfully I’m out.”

Spuduhates

The X Factor’s waste-of-an-hour Sunday night arena shows, and this series’ new sob story of choice: “I was rejected at Judges’ Houses.”

The never-ending conveyor belt of child-discipline shows like C4’s The Three-Day Nanny.

EastEnders, a place even more detached from the wider world than the town trapped inside the impregnable, invisible force-field on C5 drama Under The Dome, treating its cast like the Cheslea football squad rotation policy.

And Holly Willoughby crying at the sight of a tissue on Surprise Surprise, together with the show exchanging dream holidays in return for a cheap, tacky plug for the tour operators.

In the words of Angus Deayton hosting the 2008 British Comedy Awards: “They know who they are. I won’t embarrass them by naming them publicly.”