Just when you thought TV couldn’t possibly get any worse along came Five’s “The  Bachelor”.

The premise: bachelor, or more accurately ‘dumped father of two’, Gavin Henson, a failed international rugby player, is looking for lurve. He is presented, courtesy of Her Majesty’s Television, with sixteen “beauties” from which to select a potential girlfriend, eliminating on or two each week after a series of ritual humiliations in “exotic” locations (OK, so some were quite exotic, other were just plain naff).

If you are not vomiting already you may wish to know more.

This series, which seems to have been running since the dawn of time, has produced such gems as, “She’ s got to take an interest in sport”. What Gav, are you sure about that? And “let’s all sketch Gav naked” – which is the stuff of every blind date, after all. But ask you would expect there was no actual nakedness, just a series of strategically positioned towels. And so it went on.

Three things are clear from this new low of the reality genre:

a) prostitution is basically OK as long as it is approved by “national television”,

b) it is OK to date several woman at the same time as long as you are a witless international rugby player and it is on “national television”

c) that any woman who subjects herself to such ritual humiliation on “national television” lacks any kind of dignity whatsoever. Not to mention the non-existent dignity of the miss-described “batchelor”.
Better titled “Gavin’s Harem”, this stuff is breathtakingly dumb, and you end up asking yourself if we have really evolved that far from the apes if women folk are prepared to debase themselves so completely to “win the heart” of Charlotte’s Reject.

I mean seriously, imagine the conversation, “I’m dating this bloke, who is dating a three or four other girls at the same time and  after three months he’s of snogging the bunch of us he’s going to make his mind up, and I’m really serious about this guy”. You’re mates would just say, “You’ve got to be kidding darling! Are you mad. or what?”.

Wouldn’t they. Well they would, wouldn’t they? Of course they would!

And are we seriously expected to believe that of 16 women they would all find this utter himbo the greatest thing since sliced bread? And would none of them would ask the obvious question, “why did Charlotte dump you anyway?”

You have to wonder. What kind of prize is this serial numpty?

Come on Gav, go down Cardiff City centre like any half-decent bloke would. It’s not as if scoring is difficult.

And come on girls. Get some self-respect!