Come Dine With Me Ireland

I've got a confession to make - I love Come Dine With Me and I don't mean just the UK version - virtually any version and while the Irish version hasn't been as innovative as the regular series, it's without a doubt one of the few things TV3 have produced over the last few years that isn't a total trainwreck on their part.

Kicking off the new series of it this week, we got a Celebrity version with George McMahon (off Fair City), Roz Purcell (off Fade Street), Brian Kennedy (off bad music and coming of age gay novels), Paul Martin (off The Mirror and constantly going on about Georgia Salpa) and Noel Cunningham (off Ireland AM) and it was one of the amusing weeks going but not always for the right reasons.

All the food disasters aside - George, Noel and Roz came off especially well during the week that I'm glad that Roz ended up scooping the prize for her chosen charity but the 'feud' between Brian Kennedy and Paul Martin managed to be every bit as tedious as it was amusing. I mean, it was obvious that Paul was desperately playing up for the cameras by embodying everything about showbiz journalists that people hate (I'm surprised at one point he didn't confess to phone hacking just to really send Brian Kennedy over the flipping edge) but someone should've told him to have dialled it down a bit.

Granted Brian Kennedy came across as a Grade A bore (which doesn't bode well for The Voice Of Ireland tonight) but I find it laughable that Paul Martin said he exposed Kennedy for the egotist that he is. Paul, you slagged the man's music off, made bitchy comments towards him all week and even wrecked his dessert during your night - I think you're lucky you got a glass of wine in your face. A less patient man might have punched your lights out. The only thing that Martin did expose was his own pettiness for the sake of the cameras and publicity. When did showbiz journalists get this bad? That being said, it did make for such an entertaining week that even Channel 4 are planning to air the episodes themselves.