A few disjointed thoughts that can't really be summarised

I’m glad to report our first few days with the relaunched website have been a great success – our hit rate has surged, people have said some very complimentary things, most of all there have been a range of really interesting comments on some of our articles.

We hope the opportunity to engage in debate will be embraced by those of you who are familiar with the NS and also by all those new readers.

Don’t forget we want to hear from you when you agree with our content and on the occasions you don’t.

Just keep it clean would you? Well, cleanish anyway.

Now the relaunch is over I’m getting a bit of free time again which means I’ve turned on the telly on the odd occasion.

I say odd because, to be honest, I don’t really like watching the box – well apart from Stephen Fry’s QI on a Friday night.

But the other day I had the misfortune to catch a bit of that dreadful Trinny and Susannah show.

Personally I thought it bad enough when ‘grown-ups’ began parading their shortcomings on daytime chatshows. Now they’ve sunk to playing ‘dressing up’ on primetime TV – though I suppose you could argue that this way at least some of the shortcomings are covered up…

But what is it with this appetite for saccharine-laced freakshows? Why do people need these artificial formats to express themselves? And why do participants in these programmes so often resort to pseudo-therapy speak?

I suspect it’s a form of emotional illiteracy that, alas, has permeated everything, sometimes with unintentionally funny results.

Like the greetings card in a shop off London's Regents Street which said “A girlfriend is a sister you’ve chosen”. NO! Not unless you’re a rural pervert!

I feel similarly perplexed by the tendency to lapse into sentimental verse whenever an emotional upset occurs or some milestone is passed. My favourite was a poem by Reggie (or was it Ronnie) Kray in an autobiography which I had the misfortune to read towards the end of a French holiday when there was nothing else left in the gîte. Well it was that or a Jilly Cooper.

Needless to say I don’t remember how the gangster’s rhyme went but it resembled one of those badly scanning In Memoriam entries in local papers. You know the sort of thing: ‘Dear Ted, I am sorry you are dead, I wish you were still here instead, you faced the end with phlegm, I’ll see you down the crem.’

Anyway, I’d be interested to see any fine examples of this kind of ‘poetry’ if you’d like to send them in.

Maybe the bright young things in further and higher education can come up with some or, even better, maybe they’d like to become a blogger for our new Campus Radicals section. This is written for and by students who are interested in politics, the environment, protesting – you name it.

Kierra Box kicked us off last week and if you fancy becoming a contributor why not get in touch with some details about who you are and what you’ve done? Write to me at ben.davies@newstatesman.co.uk using your college or uni email.

Moving on I’d particularly like to draw your attention to the current Faith Column which provides a forum for people from different religions. This week it’s Asim Siddiqui on Islam.

Another must-read is Oliver Postgate’s blog. A further stonking article from the Bagpuss and Clangers creator – this week on Britain’s nuclear deterrent.

And coming soon we’ve got Simon Munnery’s hilarious first column. Surreal and brilliant. Plus Mark Thomas, Sian Berry, Marina Pepper and much, much more.

Next week ‘Why Eastenders makes me want to shoot the telly’…

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