Nostalgia used to be better than this

Leicester Mercury

You've got to hand it to ITV. It has more front than Brighton Pier, as my old gran used to say.

How else to explain last night's dire That's What I Call Christmas TV? Because all the programmes it celebrated were (whisper it) on the BBC. Yep, every single one of them.

They may has well have called it ITV: We've Shown Nothing Worth Watching For 40 Years.

Hosts Fern Britton and Ronnie Corbett (surely he could do better than this) rolled around the sofas guffawing at weak jokes with guests from 30-year-old shows.

Not the good ones, either. Some Mothers Do 'Ave Em? Just Good Friends? Good grief.

John Noakes even got a standing ovation for lighting the Blue Peter Advent candles. Nostalgia used to be so much better than it is now.

Still, there was one good thing about it. I thought after eating my own body weight in Quality Street over Christmas, nothing would shift me off the sofa.

After 20 minutes of this, I couldn't find the remote quick enough.

Sadly, all I found were clip shows. But they're not a complete waste as I did pick up the following facts: pandas love strawberry jam (thank you, Sky's 50 Greatest Celebrity Animals), the quickest way to escape a polar bear is to take all your clothes off and run (BBC 2's QI, 9pm) and through Five's Most Shocking Celebrity Moments, that the most Googled thing of the last decade was Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" at the Superbowl.