Richard Park does Girls Aloud

This year's Comic Relief highlight, we're sure, is going to be the dream Eastend pairing of Danny Baker and Alan Sugar on the Apprentice special. Having said that, though, it was nice to see Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer getting screen time that didn't involve them in having to pretend to be interested in helping horrible people ruin perfectly nice neighbourhoods by moving in and complaining about traffic noise, although we can't work out why Comic Relief Car Booty didn't go the whole hog and do a crossover edition with Cash In The Attic.

Regardless, the bulk of the Comic Relief airtime is being given over to another celebrity version of Fame Academy, which means once again Richard Park has got hold of an idea that his musical opinions carry the weight of papal bulls in the wider world. This despite the two proper series of FA having delivered precisely that, in the form of Daniel Sneddon and Alex Parks.

Parks has, somewhat uncharitably, chosen to direct his ire at the two bands who have recorded this year's Comic Relief song, Girls Aloud and the Sugababes. Now, their version of Walk This Way is so pisspoor if it wasn't for charity you'd feel obliged to ask the Hague to convene a special panel to intervene, but both groups have back catalogues which contain some genuine pop gems. Not good enough for Park, of course:

he academy headmaster, known as Strict Dick, labeled Girls Aloud unoriginal and added: “As a head teacher of the Fame Academy I have to judge on voices and choose the best voices around.

“And I don’t hear a great deal of singing talent there.”

He continued to air his views on the Sugababes. “Well they came, they went and then they came back again. I feel they are an act driven by A&R departments rather than their own ability to sing.”

The really worrying aspect, of course, is that bit about being a headmaster choosing voices, as if he's not realised that his made-up school isn't a proper educational establishment, and, even if it was, Ofsted would have had it in special measures years ago. Even the bloody series has been canned, only getting a run out for Comic Relief because the event has been caught in an ever-repeating loop (even down to the 'entertainer goes to Africa and comes back with a documentary' element, now. Girls Aloud might be unoriginal, but - as Lenny Henry selects another crazy suit and Jonathan Ross prepares some slightly cheeky pre-watershed links - it seems we like the same again, please.