I DON'T know about you, but I'm getting really sick of seeing celebrities picking over the lives of disadvantaged communities before jetting home to put the finishing touches to their oh-socaring documentaries.
The latest batch includes Caroline Quentin in A Passage Through India on ITV1 which finished last night (Tuesday).
Quentin's trailer for the programme had her saying in tearful amazement: "People live here," as the camera focused on a flapping sheet of polythene.
Then for Comic Relief on BBC 1, the totally insensitively titled: Famous, Rich and in the Slums, involved the likes of Lenny Henry and Angela Rippon 'on a quest to experience the harsh realities of life in Africa's largest slum'.
We were told they spent three days living alone (Alone? Yeah, right. No camera crews, regular meals or clean water, then?) while the second episode found them apparently 'pushed to the limit, emotionally and physically as they moved in with local people'. I can't vouch for that because I refused to watch either episode.
Maybe I am totally wrong and it was a caring/sharing experience, but the blurb was enough to turn my stomach.
I certainly didn't want to witness any of the patronising 'suffering' of the celebrities for myself.
These programmes are focusing on real people's lives, and the conditions continue long after the cameras are turned off and the 'rich and famous' are snuggled back under their duvets.
I felt particularly aggrieved by Ms Rippon, an excellent former newsreader.
She got away with dancing on Morecambe and Wise - that was both funny and ground-breaking (a newsreader with legs!) - but there is a whiff of desperation about her these days and it's not from the slums.
Comic Relief does a great job raising funds for Africa as well as projects closer to home and I confess over the years I've seen many moving reports which have made me reach for my credit card. I would hate these self-indulgent celebrities to spoil that.
By the time I saw the advert for the More 4 programme, True Stories, The Sound of Mumbai: A Musical - about an Indian slum school choir that performs The Sound of Music - I was using language that Maria Von Trapp would never have used.
FINALLY: British Summer Time begins on Sunday. Hurrah!
