I am certain you are all as excited about the launch of The Voice as I am. How could you not be? If you are human and alive? The new series starts this week, closely followed by the promise of more obscure plate-swivelling, dog-manipulating, voice-ignoring, body-mangling spectacles in the new series of Britain's Got Talent in the next fortnight. This kind of quality viewing doesn't come around often - only for almost all year, so thank heavens the wait is over! Onesies out, Judgemental hats on and viewing standards out the window - let's watch us some primetime "gold".
This is a particularly special year for me as I am planning to become part of the action. I have been intending to enter a TV Talent show for so many years, I can hardly remember when the delusion began. Be it The X-Factor, Britain's Got Talent, I'd Do Anything or Any Dream Will Do (I was badly advised there) it has long been a dream of mine to win a commercial primetime trauma-vehicle. But it is only now, having watched and studied so many of these programmes, at great social expense, that I feel I have what it takes to win. So I'm entering. All of them.
Time was when all you needed to get noticed in a talent show was a secret child or a dead relative. Gone are those halcyon days! Will Young's plaintive speech to Simon Cowell in the first series of Pop Idol seems nothing to the tantrums, violence and lawsuits issued by todays competitors. So I've really upped my game and have taken the following measures to guarantee success/win the nation's hearts/inspire the nation's vitriole/get a column in New! magazine/guest-present a 5 minute fashion slot on This Morning/pay off a third of my student loan/be recognised by anyone, at any time, please/be recognised my mother/achieve any level of self-worth.
1) I have not only quit my job, but have emailed offensive and semi-pornographic material to every employer I have ever had, as senior as possible, to ensure that I have absolutely no chance of even basic employment in the future, in any job I am qualified for or have experience in, therefore ensuring that this competition is unequivocally and in a very real sense "MY LAST CHANCE".
2) I have stocked up on diet pills and doughnuts, so I can allow my weight to fluctuate from within the finalists' houses (for that is where I shall be!) and concurrently sell my "diet secrets" as well as my "binge addiction hell" swiftly followed by my "curvy and loving it!" stories to the relevant magazines as the show goes on.
3) I'm having it off with Frankie Cocozza. It's a substantial sacrifice, I can tell you, but needs must.
4) I've listened to all of Mariah Carey's back catalogue so I can sing all those curly bits at the end of every phrase. The original melody line will be completely unrecognisable! Thanks Mariah!
5) I've bought a small dog: will teach it tricks/wear it as a living hat.
6) Managed to get arrested last month for one-woman-rioting in Hounslow. Now have criminal record to lend support to point 1) but also to make it clear that without music, my life is a lonely and desperate path, which will probably end in jail, without the help of my mentor... (fingers crossed for either Louis The Hair Walsh or Danny Fit Irish from that band)
7) I have assembled a group of equally mediocre friends to enter, who are all the same height as me but with different colour hair, so we all have a fall-back as a patched-together girl-group if all else fails. Thinking of calling ourselves "Fallen Angels" or "Babestation" or "Top Sante" or "Jugs"...
8) I've sent my Gran to the Philippines and placed photos of her in gold frames all over my house with "I miss you Gran" written in sharpies on every one...To be fair, it is true.
9) Eye-drops from Boots.
10) Just in case they try to send me the doomed way of Steve Brookstein, Leon Jackson, Joe McElderry and Shayne Ward, I have written a failsafe "winners song" (below) which will lodge me firmly in the hearts of the nation, in the hope of being the next Kerry Katona or Darius Danesh.