As this weekend was a bit of a sportsfest, and sporting events are almost impossible to cover on a TV site without turning into a review of the game, I figured I'd watch some dross. And so, I tuned in for a repeat of Project Runway (Sky Three, Sunday, 14 March, 7pm).

If you don't like people ranting about private schools, then you'd better look away now as this review of Too Poor for Posh School (Channel 4, Thursday, 11 March, 9pm) will invariably contain wild, off-the-mark judgements about those who paid fees to get an education. Unless, of course, you're like me and just loved to get riled up by complete strangers... which is what this TV show was a lesson in.

Auntie wanted to take us all Inside John Lewis (BBC Two, Wednesday, 10 March, 9pm) last night. In fairness, I've never been in a John Lewis. No, it's not like being inside John Malkovich and steering him like a bald ship. It's a shop. And, in fairness, if you wanted to go inside John Lewis, you could just walk into your nearest shop and claim that you're a TV show.

You have to give some respect to Jo Frost. Why? Well, no-one likes children unless they gave birth to them. Children are all thick and fart on everything. Yet, here's Frost, actually wanting to hang around with strange children. She actually seems to enjoy the little idiots even when they're displaying behaviour so appalling that you wonder why no-one ever passed a law that let us kick irritating kids into the sea.

Live television does strange things to people. If you're a presenter, it guarantees a certain urgency in your voice. While this immediacy is no doubt borne of nerves and the adreneline of live presenting, it does tend to imply a certain level of importance to what's going on. As such, telethons and live sporting events are given gravitas... however, what happens when you're presenting something that's not especially dramatic?

'Recession TV' is a bit of a buzzword in television circles at the minute, with execs and producers looking to make shows that recreate some imagined golden period from the programmes of yesteryear. They invariably fail... but wait! Here comes Married Single Other (ITV1, Monday, 1 March, 9pm)

Waaah! Booo! BOOOOOORING! The MPs expenses scandal? Dull rubbish that told us what we already knew - that politicians are snakes. They're based in human reality about as much as a withered, ageing asp too. Anyway, there's no way a drama about the expenses scandal was going to be much fun was there? Wrong. Totally wrong. Step forward On Expenses (BBC Four, Tuesday, 23 February, 9pm).

There was a lot of fuss in the build-up of Friday's Eastenders (BBC One, Friday, 19 February, 8pm). It was the 25th birthday of the show and it was to be shown live. From a TV critic point of view, that's an exciting notion - ER did something similar and it was all very thrilling. However, what was it like to watch?

The Brit Awards (ITV1, Tuesday, 16 February, 8pm) are pretty pointless aren't they? Not that I begrudge musicians for accepting awards of any kind... it's like getting a gold star from a teacher. It doesn't mean anything as such but no-one can resist praise, even when it's as sycophantic as an showbusiness awards show.

Just when I'm ready to kill every single TV chef on the planet... sod it... I'd dig up the corpse of Fanny Craddock just to insult the bones... along comes someone so cheery, so down to earth and so skilled that I (nearly) fall in love with the format all over again. Yep, Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets (BBC Two, Monday, 15 February, 8.30pm) arrived on our televisions last night and slapped a great big stupid grin on my face.

Recently, Fern Britton interviewed Tony Blair and now, in a similar turn, we've got Piers Morgan's Life Stories: Gordon Brown (ITV1, Sunday, 14 February, 10.15pm) which may as well have been called 'Making a Human Out Of The Prime Minister'. This was clearly a chance for Gordon Brown to show everyone that, behind that awkward smile, is a real life, walking and talking man. The problem was, sadly, that he was being interviewed by a subhuman.

Seeing as it was Valentine's Day, I figured I'd watch something romantic. This of course led me to the Babestation channels - three whole channels devoted to late-night onanists, lonely shift-workers and widowers. Once, the graveyard slot was filled with thieving idiots posing under the banner of 'quiz show'. Quizmania and The Mint would have you believe that the system was fair and the nation's most depressed and amnesiac would rattle around their houses, listening to kind kid-presenter voices whilst being fleeced for every single penny from their account.

Aaargh! WAAAOOOP! Hnnng! Hnnng! AAAAAAAH! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Horizon (BBC Two, Wednesday, 10 February, 9pm) INFINITY? Haaaaaaaaargh! It's... y'know... AAAARGH! HAHAHHA! INFINITY! Some infinities are bigger than others? WAAA! WAAA! HAHAHAHA!

Aaah, Jo Frost. She's back on our boxes again after spending a lot of time on American TV with Jo Frost: Extreme Parenting (Channel 4, Tuesday, 9 February, 8pm). So what's extreme parenting then? Is it hurling yourself through a window with a firework up your arse and shooting hugs from a giganto bazooka? No. It's about Jo Frost being the centre of attention.

I'm not going to lie to you. I am one of those incredible bores who bangs on about 'class' all the time. I can't help it because regardless of what people say, it does matter - especially if you're many rungs down the ladder from those that think we should focus on what we can do as opposed to where we're from. So with that Tower Block of Commons (Channel 4, Monday, 8 February, 9pm) is clearly right up my street... right?

I'm greatly looking forward to BBC Three giving Daphne and Celeste their own show. Possibly called U.G.L.Y. It'll see the pair mercilessly tearing strips of 'mingers' in the street without offering any help other than a paper bag with two holes, holes which will be poked in it while the ugling is wearing it. Why? Well, I haven't heard any rumours or anything but it seems inevitable because it seems like the channel is a refuge for girl group members.

Vampires have long been a staple in mass media. TV-wise especially there always seems to be a vampire show on the go (the theme of vampire investigators seems to be weirdly prevalent - Forever Knight, Angel, Blood Ties, Moonlight - due to the ability supernatural powers give them to sniff out blood and zero in on clues?). There's been a claim of a resurgence of vampire themed entertainment recently as True Blood became popular for its depiction of a world where vampires have 'come out' and live freely in human society.

It features rather hilariously over the top depictions of bloodlust and orgiastic frenzies, and doesn't really capitalise on the core market of the Twilight watchers - dewy-eyed teenage girls who are longing for another abstinent vampire to ritually offer up their necks to. Enter The Vampire Diaries, the newest American import shipped over by ITV2.

The Vampire Diaries comes with a gold standard of teen market talent behind it; based on a popular series of books by Young Adult author L.J. Smith, it is brought to our television screens by Kevin Williamson, who any connoisseur of teen angst will recognise as the creator of Dawson's Creek and the writer of the Scream films.

Ian Somerhalder, probably the only recognisable face in the acting ensemble having played the ineffectual Boone on Lost, also brings with him a solid background in guest-starring on teen shows and a stint on the short-lived series Young Americans, which I fondly recall as one of the strangest teen shows I've seen, featuring as it did a cross-dressing girl who Somerhalder falls in love with and a quasi-incestuous sub-plot.

Critics have so far been underwhelmed by the first episodes but I must say I rather enjoyed them. All the over-familiar plot devices are present - Elena has secret pain caused by her parents passing away, Stefan is mysterious and broody, gothic mist rolls and sways across the landscape and a crow flies overhead as the two bump into each other at the graveyard. The show is burdened by a clunky 'Dear Diary' narration and soundtracked by a passably good indie mixture (Bat For Lashes, Stars and The Raconteurs are some acts featured).

The acting is fine, as it goes, and of course the stars are all very pretty. It's precisely its mediocrity that makes it so enjoyable. It has the air of a 90s classic teen show about it, I don't want to get all 'Kids these days...' but it has an earnest air and a complete lack of attempting to be at all edgy or forcibly cool that feels a world away from something like Skins or Gossip Girl.

Watching it felt to me like putting on an old cosy jumper. I almost went into a Proustian reverie, I felt like I was 14 again with much smaller problems than my overdraft and nine-to-five woe, camping out on the couch to watch the travails of people much prettier and suspiciously better spoken than me. OK, I'm pushing it with the Proust thing, but all I'm saying is my formative years were defined by Buffy and Dawson's Creek and watching The Vampire Diaries was for me an affable nostalgia trip, if nothing else.

ITV have incredible front. First they've got the sheer cheek to send Piers Morgan around some of the most glamorous places in the world and not wonder why that might be staggeringly dreadful... and now... well... they've given us Amanda Holden's Fantasy Lives (ITV1, Tuesday, 2 February, 9pm) which sees the dead-eyed dolt going to very nice places and telling us, who can't go, how wonderful it is. A towering monument of sneering cheek, set to topple over on to you, snorting.