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To test the 'extended entry' function I need a big block of text. I lazily and arrogantly choose to paste in my own column from the Observer Magazine. Let's see what happens.

Looking for world peace? Start with Stars in Their Eyes

It is a rarely acknowledged fact that if everyone in the world were to watch Stars in Their Eyes there would be no war. Science has yet to prove the thesis, but it merits consideration.

Let us assume for a moment that there is a relationship, however tenuous, between reality as in 'reality television' and reality as in the mundane odyssey that starts when we wake up in the morning and ends when we go to bed at night.

Then let us note that we can be a nation of deceitful, sex-obsessed boozers ( Big Brother ), tight-fisted DIY bodgers (Changing Rooms) and all-singing, all-dancing potential superstars (X Factor), depending which TV mirror we choose to look into.

We conclude that Britons are putty, bending to the manipulative hand of television svengalis whose hypnotic power can make us jettison dignity and kindness while performing amazing feats of musical virtuosity.

Then let us survey the programmes that make a spectacle of ordinary folk and think about which we would most like to reflect the values of the nation. Having recoiled at the vision of a world cast in the image of Jade Goody, let our eyes come to rest on the box come Saturday night at 6pm.

In case you belong to the 71 per cent audience share that doesn't watch Stars in Their Eyes , the proceedings are as follows. Five people dress up as their favourite singer and perform a karaoke rendition of their favourite song. The audience votes according to who sounds the most like their idol and the winner earns a place in the final. The finalists then dress up and sing again. Another vote. A champion is found. The winner weeps with joy. The end.

No prize. No million-pound record deal. No Max Clifford. No pictures of your cellulite in Heat magazine followed by your ex-lover's three-in-a-bed romp revelations to the Star . Nothing, except possibly a bit of pub celebrity back home and some make-up tips from whoever does your backstage 'transformation'.

Stars in Their Eyes pre-dates the reality TV boom by at least a decade, making it the aristocrat of have-a-go telly. It was thrusting wide-eyed novices into the limelight when Big Brother was still an Orwell metaphor. Cat Deeley, the presenter, honours the show's pedigree by treating the contestants with patrician indulgence. It is one of the only programmes on TV where people are actually nice to each other. No tricks, no Simon Cowell sneer, no hidden cameras.

For that very reason, the programme is probably defunct. It can't be long before it is replaced by 'Extreme Makeover Stars in Their Eyes meets Faking It', in which members of the public undergo reconstructive surgery to make them look like forgotten one hit wonders. The real star and the copy then compete for the original royalties to the song.

We'd watch it of course. But we might feel also a twinge of nostalgia for the old Stars in Their Eyes which gave you the impression that we lived in a country populated entirely by good-natured dilettantes who sang surprisingly well and wanted nothing more out of life than the chance to dress up in a silly wig and sing a song.