Recently by Paul Flower

Blubber and blubbering - The Biggest Loser, ITV1 Tuesday 9pm

You'd think it'd be easy to escape the morbidly obese, after all they'd hardly likely to catch you even at a slow jogging pace. Should you be watching any prime-time TV however you'll find they're omnipresent; if it's not morbidly obese crime (the 74 stone babysitter, C4) then it's the morbidly obese trying to be less obese or perhaps less morbid.

This week saw the return of The Biggest Loser (ITV1), doubtlessly scheduled to coincide with most of us reaching our guiltiest and flabbiest ebb, reminding us of our resolutions and a nationwide desire to pull back from the seasonal excess. In some respects it was hard to know if they're telling us to stop before we get as bloated as these people or reassuring us that maybe we're not so bad after all.

There's no doubt that the participants in TBL should've moved from the sweet trolley to the salad bar a very long time ago. All ten have bodies that would shame the Michelin man and personalities that greatly belie the theory about fat people being jolly; so many tears were shed in the first programme that the contestants could've swam their way to fitness.

The foolish queue
to be unfulfilled
at a price
they can ill afford

Pyromaniac show-offs
send sparks skywards
regardless of the time
or cost

While Jools celebrates
like it's live
rather than over-rehearsed
and recorded earlier

The old man shuffles
out the back door
coal in hand
to come back in the front

We who think we know better
sit in silent remembrance
with misplaced hope
that this year might be different

Frankie Cocozza, remember him? Me neither. I understand that he was the 'rock 'n' roll' one on this year's X Factor, the one that was supposed to inject some rock energy into the increasingly dull proceedings. Apparently he got sacked for doing something a bit too rock n' roll, perhaps a case of prematurely believing his own hype or just life imitating television.

Likelihood is that he'd have survived if he'd been any good in the first place but they needed the revelations and front-page stories more than they needed his dubious talent. He was one of this year's 'colour-characters', the contestants they keep in the mix to make it a little bit interesting, to stimulate the 'water-cooler' moments, to keep us chatting about the unfairness of it all - as if anyone believed it is a fair and just contest.

The verdict is due today: the one that determines the guilt, or otherwise, of Michael Jackson's doctor. I can already supply the overall verdict; it is that celebrities and the very rich can find people to do anything that they want.

The ethos of this is ingrained in our history whether it's Roman emperors forcing slaves and prisoners to fight to the death in the coliseum, or the retail environs of the nouveau riche promising that they can sell you anything from an aniseed ball to a zebra. If you've got the money or the power (or inevitably both) then you can get anything you want.

Frankly it was a terrible place for a gig. The room was wide instead of long and the stage, if you could call it such, was bang in the middle facing a bar which was no more than 10 foot (or 3 metres if you prefer) away.

The reason I hesitate to call it a stage is that essentially it was no more than a raised seating platform which barely accommodated a full band and at weekends masqueraded as a micro dance-floor. It was also enclosed by chrome bars (see below) which might've doubled for a crash-barrier if anyone had been inclined to rush the stage - they never were.

Then there was the décor to contend with. Someone had clearly taken the theme of 'disco bar' a little too far, every wall was a glittering or reflective surface and the not-high ceiling sported a number of mirrored balls or half-mirrored where there was not enough space for a full version.

The arguments are redundant, The Roses are reforming.

You can't have missed the news and you probably have a view. If you were at all interested in the beginning then you probably fall into two camps - the can't waits or the can't be bothereds.

I'm not sure we need to debate their reasons for doing so, why does it matter? Maybe it is for money and if so would it really make them any different from any major touring act at the moment? Do you really think the others are only doing it for love, that they don't have their pension plan in mind?

The bigger question is whether they can recapture the glory. As a live act they never really amounted to much but they also never really over-played. After 1990 they were barely seen live in the UK at all so the demand has always been there - there are countless thousands who grew up with their music but never had the chance to witness the 'spectacle'.

For me, and many of my (and later) generations for a while The Roses were omnipotent and their debut album was a crystallisation of various scenes moulded into one work of brilliance. Can we really be cynical about the majesty of I Am The Resurrection or the genius of Fools Gold?

In times of recession we need hope and there's enough goodwill and genuine hope out there that this time they can make it work. Enough time has elapsed that we can forget the comedy delays of their second album take it all back to the beginning and start again. We need a band like The Stone Roses, time will tell whether it's actually The Stone Roses that we need.

In the next blog I will over-elaborate on my personal role in the Roses and their first of very few Birmingham performances.

It's perhaps easier to see what the producers of TOTP had in mind, keeping the older male audience perhaps, with this performance from Legs & Co:

A natural part of the aging process is the discovery that things you considered fundamental or essential in your childhood have no relevance at all to your children. There's a photo currently circulating in social-media-land which depicts a cassette tape and a pencil with the legend that 'our children will never know the correlation between the two'.

They're right of course but it goes further than that: my kids would barely have knowledge of a cassette tape anyway and their kids probably won't have much need for a pencil. I occasionally wander into this cul de sac of thought surmising on what the future holds and the past has left behind - the term cul de sac is appropriate, fitting both the dead-end nature of this thinking using a phrase that no-one uses or needs anymore. Not that I needed to explain that of course.

At any rate this process began with an episode of Top Of The Pops from September 30th 1976 broadcast on BBC4 last week as part of a repeat series they're undertaking week by week with old episodes of the programme. I sat and watched it with some horror in the company of my 15 year old daughter. Sadly it wasn't a classic.

Since last week's post about my mum on Facebook I've been doing some deeper thinking about identity; I probably shouldn't have bothered.

Perhaps part of my resistance to accepting her as a Facebook friend was to do with my own sense of self. Even at this age there are probably still sides to my character that I wouldn't share with my mum. I think also that everyone's online character is in some way an exaggeration of themselves, it may be real-time but it is not entirely real.

My mum has joined Facebook; no good can come of this. My daughter has already had to 'clean up' her wall to avoid potential embarrassment or awkward questions from her nan.

I only know about the 'clean up' as she told me, I wouldn't otherwise since I'm not allowed to be her Facebook friend. Using this principle - eldest child rejects parent - I could similarly ignore my mother's request. It speaks volumes that I wonder if she'd actually notice.