Lily Allen and Friends and voters

Whoever would have imagined, back in the 1980s, that one day you'd be able to vote for which band you'd like to see playing on the television? (Besides everyone who watched Whistle Test and its 'videovote' feature, and anyone who saw the similar thing The Tube did.)

But now that crazy dream has come true. Um, again. In a bid to give Lily Allen's curious show something to do that isn't reliant on showing old bits of video off the internet - thus prompting comparisons with Graham Norton's show from about a decade ago - BBC Three are allowing you to vote to choose a band you'd like to see. Yes, like The Box does.

What's amusing, though, is the page of terms and conditions that are covering, remember, a face-off between Blood Red Shoes and Metro, not the choice of the next leader of her majesty's opposition:

Band vote - rules

# Voting is available online only between 11pm after the first transmission of the show, and 10am the following Thursday. Votes received outside the specified times will not be counted. Voting times may change.

# Only one vote is permitted per person. If you do vote multiple times, only your first vote each week will count.

# The BBC reserves the right to cancel or suspend voting at any time.

# The BBC reserves the right to disqualify votes if it has reasonable grounds to suspect that fraudulent voting has occurred or if it considers there has been any attempt to rig the voting.

# The BBC, its sub-contractors, subsidiaries and/or agencies cannot accept any responsibility whatsoever for any technical failure or malfunction or any other problem with any system, server, provider or otherwise which may result in any vote being lost or not properly registered or recorded.

# In case of the vote being compromised or in case of a technical failure, the BBC will defer to a panel of judges to choose the outcome. The panel will include executives from the BBC and Princess Productions.

Failing all that, the winner will be picked in the style of Pets Win Prizes, using an elderly cat encouraged by Danny Baker.

To be honest, why would you need a public vote to decide between Blood Red Shoes and Metro? It's like inviting consultation on if you should have velvet bed sheets or sleep in a breaker's yard.



Blood Red Shoes, obviously.