Chris Titley

After a hard day's race hatred, you need to relax. Acting out imaginary knife attacks on black people must be exhausting. Even harmless banter, like stabbing an armchair over and over again while screaming racist obscenities, can tire an individual.

The Granada group understands. That is why it lays on top notch accommodation for every bigot it puts on national television.

Jamie and Neil Acourt, Gary Dobson, David Norris and Luke Knight are the most reviled men in Britain today. So Granada decided to treat them like royalty. It has emerged that the makers of Tonight With Trevor McDonald despatched a chauffeur-driven car to pick up the men as soon as they had finished their squalid attempt to distance themselves from the Stephen Lawrence murder.

Their destination was Henhill House in Perthshire. It had everything a small-minded extremist could wish for, including a log fire, en suite bathrooms and a state of the art stereo. Everything except a satellite television system. But those thoughtful chaps at Granada had one installed.

In fact, the company spent so much on their two-week stay - £3,850 - that the owner of the lettings agency involved thought Henhill House was being leased out to pop stars.

We should have expected nothing less from Granada, the market leader in grovelling to guttersnipes. In 1996, the same company laid on a gold Mercedes and rooms at the Hyde Park Hotel in London's Knightsbridge for actor and non-murderer OJ Simpson. Eerily, he was appearing on another show called "Tonight with...", although the hosts this time had considerably more gravitas than Trevor McDonald. That's right, it was Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan.

But it is nice to see that the TV company has managed to retain its moral integrity. On neither occasion were the interviewees paid a penny.

North Yorkshire's indifference to the magical properties of Viagra is either (a); a chance for us chaps to swagger about the county as if we own it, or (b); a sad reflection on our social inadequacies. It depends on where - and how - you stand. In the league table of spenders on Viagra, North Yorkshire Health Authority came seventh from bottom. It pays out a third of the amount that top spender St Helens does on the impotence cure.

Now this might be a cause for celebration. Does it not prove that the North Yorkshire male is a rugged self starter, without the need for chemical props?

Not really, according to York GP Dr Tony Sweeney. He believes the low North Yorkshire figure might be because we are more reluctant to come forward and discuss the problem.

Respected medical journal the News of the World placed a different interpretation on the story. The paper brought in its St Helens-born writer to blame the "impotence plight" there on the town being removed from Lancashire. "We knew who our enemies were... Yorkshiremen," he wails. "Then suddenly we were moved to Merseyside. Our manhood, our identity, began to ebb away."

Scientists insist that local government boundary changes have no effect on male performance. And it would be a bit much to reinstate the War of the Roses just to revive northern man's libido. Still, it's a thought...

It now seems every news story has a link with Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan. Not only were they OJ's interrogators, they fed Viagra to volunteers on This Morning.

Now the show has made headlines again. A TV watchdog has rightly rejected complaints about a slot which gave a graphic demonstration of how men should examine themselves for testicular lumps.

This Morning decided to follow this up by hiring Jerry Springer to host the show. Now that really is obscene. Put it away, please!

21/04/99

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.