This time of year is ideal for taking photographs. Not only is it the Christmas season but it is also the Holy month of Ramadan, a time for family when there are Iftari (breaking of the fast) parties to attend.

Out comes the video camera, usually hidden away, for these special kind of occasions - the family gatherings and get-togethers, starring your cousins three times removed (but still not far enough) and your auntie whom nobody likes but is too polite (or scared) to say so and your uncle who can never remember your name or how old you are.

Well, that's the idea anyway.

What actually happens, of course, is that you can't find anything remotely interesting to video. Nobody wants to have themselves recorded while they are stuffing themselves with food - especially at weddings when you are guaranteed not to be filmed when you walk through the door looking lovely and radiant and wonderful, but instead when you are up to your armpits in ghee and chewing the living daylights out of a chicken leg. And all your lipstick has come off.

I have always thought that this is how the longevity and lasting colour of lippy should be checked - not clinically under scientific conditions but at an Asian wedding after a starter and a main course. Definitely by the time the zarda (orange sweet rice) comes round you will be lipstickless.

So you don't exactly feel glamorous. In fact, having your photo taken after a certain age, ie six, is a horrible experience. No wonder people refuse on religious grounds.

Little tots' birthday parties are great because there is usually a fight over the Teletubby toys, followed by a big hug as they make up, or are forced to make up by their alarmed parents. What a wonderful opportunity to make some dosh! How cute the babies look cuddling each other, isn't that what they call the 'feelgood' factor? Alas, the makers of You've Been Framed think otherwise and they send the tape back with a polite note saying that they can't use it. And that doesn't make you feel very good, does it?

What's wrong with your clip, you demand to know. Is it X-rated? Is it breaking the law? No, according to the programme wallahs, it is "not action-packed" enough. In other words, nobody in the clip died or needed urgent medical attention and hospitalisation for six months so, sorry, it's just not funny enough.

You've Been Framed used to be a daft but enjoyable show with Jeremy Beadle and that funny twisted house. Okay, so we'd seen the clips about a squillion times before and they'd been sent in by Americans in 1986 but they were put to different music and the half-hour passed painlessly enough.

But it's all changed. Now you see people crashing their cars, going over cliffs and worse, little cute babies getting injured for a few cheap laughs. And worse, so that Jeremy Beadle doesn't get the blame for this state of affairs, they've replaced him with the jovial Lisa Riley.

Personally, I think the producers of this puerile show should get thrown off a motorbike and somersault ten times in a ditch. And if there's a camcorder handy, we might have the last laugh...

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.