Well, apparently we’ve arrived in the year 1987, where people are still debating the effect of video games on our poor, innocent children. No, wait. It’s The Alan Titchmarsh show! Or as it should be advertised, Loose Women for people who occasionally forget when they’re supposed to breathe.

How did Alan Titchmarsh get a chat show, I wonder? He doesn’t seem especially charismatic or funny. He looks like a cross between a fatigue-ridden Dudley Moore and coconut. What possessed someone at ITV to say, “This is what we should be spending money on: Titchmarsh!” I’ve never met one person who hasn’t expressed an active dislike for the man, but perhaps he’s got a more closeted fan base or a fan base of students who like him ironically. But still, why ITV? Why? Did he just keep turning up to the set and asking really politely?

I think Alan was supposed to be debating whether or not we should expose our children to the violence in games like GTA, Left 4 Dead, and Call of Duty, but that’s ridiculous, obviously. So the debate instead turned into an exercise in making people who don’t have the brain capacity to form actual opinions feel special about themselves by shaking their heads and booing a bit.

Titchmarsh... sitting on a fan: criticising video games whilst barring a striking resemblance to Dizzy The Adventurer.

I think Titchmarsh said it best when he said, “You can’t stop children getting in… to a house… and putting a video on, but you can stop them getting into a cinema.” A very true statement. Now this is what I’m talking about. This is the issue politicians aren’t addressing: the issue of children breaking into houses and putting bloody videos on!

Just hours ago, I went downstairs to make a cup of tea and a 9 year-old orphan child was sat in my living room and watching some explicit, vomit-themed snuff porn I’d bought earlier that day. Not my problem or the boys parents of course, but the people who made the vomit-themed snuff porn. They’re the real monsters here! Therefore all videos should be banned. All videos are bad.

I don’t know if it’s the effect video games have had on my subconscious, but right now, I really want to repeatedly jump on Titchmarsh’s ridiculous little coconut head until coins come out.

I think it’s safe to suggest that Alan isn’t really sure what video games are. Videos, I guess. I think he thinks video games are VHS cassettes that you control or something. But how about the other people on the panel? How about actress and author Julie Peasgood? She should know about them surely? After all, she voiced a character in the reprehensibly bad PC and Playstation game Martian Gothic, a game I unfortunately, remember all to well.

But no, despite lending her voice to a particularly violent video game, Peasgood doesn’t seem to know any more than Alan does. However, I don’t think understanding what games are has anything to do with this incredibly vague debate. All Peasgood (I feel nauseous every time I type that) and Tichmarsh have to comprehend is that GTA, Left 4 Dead, and Call of Duty aren’t for children nor can they be purchased by children.

Either way, I feel safer knowing kids around the country are illegally playing GTA instead of watching The Alan Titchmarch show or whatever crap ITV drama Peasgood is starring in. Although, considering Alan Titchmarsh has his own show, perhaps kids are inexplicably tuning in.

In future, let’s debate the actual negative effects of video games.