God bless the Great British Public

...not for anything intrinsically cool, but for voting Will Young as Pop Idol over Gareth Gates.

OK, so that was, like, years ago, and any number of evil pseudo-democratic bollocks reality TV programmes have been shoved down our gullets since. I wasn't deliberately being tardy. I was just gleefully acknowledging that, while the judges clearly wanted Gareth (17 year old spiky haired doofus) to win, there remains something glorious about the Great British Public (GBP) that meant the 21 year old gay public schoolboy politics graduate got the vote.

What a great country we live in. I said it at the time, only quietly. And I say it again, only louder, because he has just narrated/headlined a fantastic hour-long documentary about runaway kids and the woefully inadequate services that exist to support them and their families. This is all, of course, part of Children in Need. When I am a plumber I will take two holidays a year: one will avoid Christmas and the other will avoid Children in Need. But both prompt those who would otherwise not bother to think of others to do so, so I can't be too vile about it. And it was a good documentary.

And one which I am sure Gareth Gates a) could never and b) would never have done. I am not happy about the power of celebrity, but I do see that it is a reality, and my woolly hat is off to Mr Young for using his power well.

joella