Reality TV

It's an evening of telly for us. Nathan's been at a yarn festival all day, so I stayed at home, had a little lie-in, and wrote. I've been working on the opening song from Em, which is super-fast and supremely upbeat. I have to say, I'm getting slightly itchy feet to finish this first round of composing on the show. I want to put everything Em-related away during March and do nothing but work on the Nene project. I can feel myself itching to write sadder, more contemplative material. I suppose I feel a little sad and contemplative right now. Might as well make the most of it. It worked for Sibelius!

There's so much reality TV on at the moment. The Voice, Let It Shine, Dance, Dance, Dance, the Big Painting Challenge, the Great Pottery Throw Down. I don't really know if we'll ever catch up on all the episodes we've not yet seen! We started watching the Big Painting Challenge tonight, which seems to be a veritable box -ticking exercise with painters, mentors, judges and presenters representing a fabulously broad range of ethnic backgrounds. There was even a deaf contestant. What, of course, was missing, was a first-language Welsh or Celtic speaker. In my opinion, there's always considerable less attempt made to represent the proud linguistic diversity of our Nations.

It's worth watching the show for its healthy dollops of bullshit, however. One of the mentors doesn't seem to actually be able to speak without nonsense dripping from her mouth! She's like someone from W1A. One of the contestants is a "concept" artist who was tasked with painting a still life. She ended up dumping a load of wishy-washy paint in totally unrelated shapes on the canvas. When the judges came over, they seemed utterly bemused. I think they wanted to laugh. I certainly did.