DAYBREAK - ITV-WEEKDAY MORNINGS.

Breakfast TV is a tough nut to crack. You're on at a time when the potential viewers are barely awake, rarely functioning to the best of their abilities, and if it's a house with Kids in, everyone is frantically trying to eat Coco Pops, put their socks on and finish their homework in time for the School Run. Our house in the morning is chaotic, fractious and full of cats. I should imagine it's the same over at Ann Widdecombe's gaff.


In my house, Mrs D insists on having ITV on in the 25 minutes or so she has before leaving for work. Her reasoning for this is that The BBC offering is too dull and "newsy" and she cannot abide being subjected to Nickolodeon/ CBeebies or any of the kids' stuff that my children are attempting to sneak on to the telly. So she pursued a hardline on this for months with all of us. As arguing with Mrs D first thing in the morning is about as productive and healthy as sharpening knives with your tongue, the rest of us fell in line without complaint or backbone.


This meant that we were regularly made to suffer the stultifying blandness of GMTV for bloody months. Day after day after day of the same pastel nonsense slowly began to eat into my soul. And any time Dr. Hilary Jones came on, the whole house was enveloped in a choking cloud of smugness. 


I was actually quite pleased when I found out that it was all being put in the dumper and a new show. Daybreak,was taking over, to be hosted by  the admirably grumpy Adrian Chiles and his toothy sidekick, Christine Bleakley. My mild happiness was mainly down to the fact that I knew I'd never have to wake up to Andrew Castle ever again.


It's been well documented and commented upon over the last six months or so, that Daybreak has not lived up to the hopes and ambitions of all involved, especially the audience, After watching the first week or so, purely out of morbid curiosity, I myself, have avoided most of it, by doing Useful Things between 7.15 - and 8.15, then getting rid of it as soon as Mrs D has done one to work.


Today though, I woke stupidly early and having done all my Useful Things by 7.30, I ended up watching some of it. I know it was weak of me, I know it was hypocritical, I know I shouldn't have done it...but I did. What surprised me the most was the fact that even after having had so long to "bed in" (in other words, work out what works, and bin what doesn't), it's still bloody awful.


Christine is on her hols, so Adrian had Kate Garroway with him - quite why she avoided the Stalinesque purging of all things GMTV, is beyond me. Her insights are still as dull and opaque as they ever were. Adrian still looks like he wants to have a really nasty poo all the time, and seems quietly resigned to his fate of death by a thousand lost viewers every second.. There was a feature on Wills and Kate in Canada, which was so toadying and greasy, that it made James Whittaker seem positively Republican in comparison. Worst of all, it had Peter Andre not just being interviewed, but singing "live". In most cases, I would usually applaud any artist performing live, but not "our Pete". His constipated cod-Jacko warbling made my teeth itch, and two of our cats ran off in fear.  Kate Garrulous actually introduced him by saying "We all love him!". Even my 11 year old daughter spat out her Coco Pops when she said that. "I don't love him." she muttered. "He's well rubbish". At that moment, I loved her even more than I did when she told me some years back that "Westlife sound like puke".


I vaguely saw a trail for Lorraine coming on later, but thankfully, three hours later, that memory has already faded. All I grasped was that she's still there doing the same as she always has (smiling a lot, interviewing people off the telly, smiling a lot, passing on information about how to dress your kids for a fiver and smiling a lot). I suspect she's the only part of the show that has retained any of the old GMTV viewers. The rest are in care homes, in comas or watching re-runs of Frazier under the misapprehension that it's a behind-the-scenes documentary series about a Radio DJ.


The only breakfast TV show that ever really got the format right, was The Big Breakfast on Channel Four. It understood that anyone who wanted news would be listening to the Radio or watching BBC One, so it didn't even try to do any serious analysis of current affairs issues beyond the headlines, which at that time of the morning, are all most people need. It knew that most viewers were around for maybe 20 to 30 minutes at best, and it absolutely pelted through items at speed, so you were only ever three minutes away from the next bit. And it also knew that the biggest favour you can do for anyone who's just woken up, is to make them laugh. That's a hard trick to pull off at that time of the morning, but if you do it, you're truly going to be loved. Which is why, first thing of a morning, I often stand at the end of the bed, dressed in clown shoes and a tutu.


Daybreak doesn't do any of those things (though Clown Shoes may be coming soon for Adrian). Stuff goes on too long, the topics are positively beige, and it's completely lacking in actual opinion or insight. I'd rather watch Dora The Explorer as I may actually learn something, even if it is only the Spanish word for "mountain".


I would give it a score, but I don't see any point as it would probably add up to less than 4. And that would only be down to the fact that it doesn't have Andrew Castle on it.