MISS AMERICA

This is Miss Nevada - now Miss America. She clinched the title by playing the full classical version of Chopsticks on the piano, admitting she makes dresses from different coloured duct tape and saying she wants to be a Supreme Court Judge.

Having just bought HBO and tons of other channels there is still nothing worth watching on Saturday night TV. Unless it's Miss America night, as it was last night. Whadda show! Simon Cowell needs to get hold of this franchise fast because it was the best, competitive, reality TV I have seen in a long time. The competing queens are professional pageant veterans. Giant, Tiny Tears dolls with Barbie wig-hair and odd, home-made looking spangle-frocks.  With a mix of horro-nation (horror and fascination, folks) I watched. A woman came on in a blonde wig and red semi-ballet outfit then wearily performed a 'contemporary dance' routine to Michael Jackson's 'The Way You Make Me Feel'.  Her robotic (learned and unchanged since the age of 4?) performance went beyond anything ever seen on French & Saunders. Another came on in a catsuit with two ventriloquist dolls and yodelled her way through gritted teeth to a song called 'I want to be a cowboy's sweetheart'.

The talent section of the show just kept giving. The last contestant performed a full classical ballet piece to a rock ballad. I'm not being mean, just saying she was about the same size as me. Miss New York, the lone politicial ranger in the show, apparently campaigning on gay marriage, sadly did not get to perform her talent routine. A shame because she was wearing an outfit hinting at the roaring 20s (as in decade, she's about 40) which promised to be pretty bluddy good. Actually she is not 40 but all the competitors looked like 40-plus cosmetic counter assistants from Macys. Not Barneys or Saks.

After the talent section came a hide-behind-the-sofa-cushion session of mini-interviews on current affairs. Oh Lord. Yet my feminist mind has been changed on the demise of beauty contests. Everyone was nice, there was none of that awful criticism you get on the X-factor, these women were oblivious to the outside world. Sponsored by a shoe retailer, they came up with a fancy dress outfit each based around a shoe.  Meanwhile they were constantly praised for their beauty, talent and grace all the way through the show. It's sexist in the old-fashioned sense of the word but hang on. Let these women make their choices and please, please, let's televise them doing it more often.

The Miss America contest was televised from Las Vegas, where the same mayor has been in charge for 12 years and never appears without a showgirl on each arm.