Was sitting up late before the TV last night waiting for the Arts Central Christmas Special (some medley with lots of different musical instruments...) and since I was fifteen minutes early I tuned in to "Are You Hot??" ... Let me first defend myself by saying that the only other alternatives were Charlotte Church and the News. That being said, I have to admit that I didn't much mind watching "Are You Hot" anyway. I don't watch it for the men, mind. But I think the women were pretty and it was vaguely interesting to see them putting themselves up for disgrace. And insult. You know, some of them actually look like the awfully-clean decent type, the kind you'd pass by on the street and not look twice (except at the face.) One of them is even a nanny.

(For those who don't know it already, I'm pretty sensitive to the News. I can't bear to watch it. I don't like politics. I don't like history. I don't like economics. I don't like anything that smacks of rigid facts and doom and wars and blood, blood, blood. I hate it all especially when my mom tells me about this or that person who was run over by a railway train or some cat who was tortured to death and I can picture it all so graphically it's really quite unbearable...

As for Charlotte Church, I couldn't stand listening to her since a year ago, when I was doing CIP at the Bird Park with Serene, Mary and Clive. I did ten hours CIP per day. And they played the same Charlotte Church CD over and over again, on loop, for at least two full days while I was there. Now try listening to Charlotte Church for twenty hours and see if you can still abide listening to her.)

Yeah. So it was "Are You Hot" instead.

Didn't take me more than five minutes of viewing to realise a certain pattern emerging: they all want the women to be as stick-thin and curvy as possible, while the men were marching out like great chunks of meat. And not even hunks either. Chunks. There is something very strange (visually) about having one tottering thin female after another coming out, followed by a man with arm muscles twice the size of her legs. Now it's been said that we are attracted to the... ah, shapes... of the opposite sex mostly due to our biological functions. Be fruitful and multiply, as you'd recall. But I can't imagine anyone wanting to be fruitful and multiplying with men who looked like they'd golf balls under their skin. The abdominal muscles, fine. But the thick neck and bulging arms?

And you know what was the weirdest thing? They showed a short video clip of each contestant before he or she came out. And they were showed at home and dressed in normal clothes. And they all looked so ordinary, especially the men, who were mostly dressed in turtlenecks. The contrast was freaking obvious. Men look so much better with their clothes on; a naked man looks more like a joke.

Anyway, I'm mightly pleased with Arts Central this hols. They have plenty of stuff lined up... there's even "A Streetcar Named Desire"! And "Never Been Kissed"! I'll be spoilt for choice...