Why do we turn up our noses at Jade?

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As Big Brother 3 moves into its closing stages, the show has recovered from charges that it had become boring to achieve some of its highest ratings. One way it has done this is by demonising Jade Goody. A 21-year-old from Bermondsey, Jade's main crime is daring to be fat, loud, female and unapologetic about it. If you took Sharon Mitchell, the former landlady of the Queen Vic in EastEnders, and blew her up with a bicycle pump until you couldn't pump any more, then you'd have Jade.

I imagine that Big Brother producers were hoping that the council-estate kid would emerge as the Helen Adams of this year's show.

Remember Helen, the daffy Welsh girl whose interests included blinking and handbags, but who had a gentle hopefulness about her that ended up endearing her to millions? Well, Jade is on a par with Helen for general knowledge - she thinks that a strawberry is a kind of vegetable - but she lacks Helen's sweetness, although that is no excuse for the grotesque media persecution of her, which culminated in viewers standing outside the Big Brother House last week waving placards saying: Kill the Pig!

By cruel coincidence, Kill the Pig! happens to be what the boys shout in Lord of the Flies when they smash the fat lad's glasses and strip off the tattered remnants of civilised behaviour. They have become barbarians.

And isn't it barbaric to expose someone as vulnerable and ignorant as Jade to public scrutiny?

A special-needs case if ever there was one, a drunken Jade was persuaded to awkwardly remove her bra and pants in front of the boys who sat there in their clothes laughing at her. And what does Channel 4 call televising her appearing to give a blow-job to a man who clearly cared nothing for her - entertainment?

Jade Goody is what you get when you give a kid a chaotic childhood and raise it in a society where self-abasement is considered a career move.

Her mum told heat magazine that when Jade was bullied, "I used to make her go to school with squeezy bottles of lemon to squirt in girls' eyes. I even gave her scissors once, but she handed them in".

What a marvellous maternal example that was.

A senior Big Brother producer told a paper at the weekend that the show was "an unpopularity contest". He admitted to being concerned for Jade. A little late in the day for that. We can probably count the hours till her bones are left in the sun after the tabloid dogs have got what they want from her.

People are queuing up to hand over their credit cards for advice on how to fall in love and details of people to fall in love with, although I notice many applicants are now ticking the "No Falling" box because falling in love implies a certain element of risk, and with that could come bruising and other injuries.

Now, to further cushion the shock of romance, and to minimise the possibility of being dumped thereafter, comes The Compatibility Quotient Test. All you have to do is log on to the enticingly named Cybersuitors.com, which sounds like a place where Lara Croft would get a date with the Terminator.

Once there, you answer some multiplechoice questions set by Dr Glenn Wilson. The London University psychologist says that his Test will reveal whether you and a partner can enjoy a lasting relationship, because the fundamental basis for marital happiness is "agreeing on 25 key areas".

Which sounds like bad news for those of us who can't even agree on who last had the car keys.

Apparently, couples with similar tastes in food are three times more likely to be happy than those who cannot agree on what to eat. And women are more likely to stay with a man who holds similar views on politics. Or so says Dr Wilson, who clearly hasn't contemplated the possibility that part of the joy of loving another person might lie in difference. That wonderful sense of being made for someone - of fitting them like a suit - is not the same as being the same as them.

Just think back to Bringing Up Baby, a great romantic comedy, which saw the sparring of Katharine Hepburn's sporty heiress and Cary Grant's palaeontologist. That affair showed a mix could be a match and you hoped and trusted that the flame would keep them aglow well into old age.

The problem with the business-school approach to love is that it's all percentages and no awkward feelings. Let us not to the marriage of two Compatibility Quotient Test results admit impediments. How much fun does that sound? I think it was Bertrand Russell who said that, of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness. So forget dating by numbers and try my alternative test.

Given a choice of after-dinner sweets, which would it be? Try to tell the truth. 1 Bendicks Bittermints 2 After Eights 3 Special Edition Mint Crunchie 4 Mintolas

My favourite Stevie Wonder track is: 1 Superstition 2 I Just Called to Say I Love You 3 I don't like Stevie Wonder 4 Any person who answers 1 must NEVER kiss anyone who answers 2. And NEVER EVER fall in love with someone who answers 3.

Which of the following best describes the type of relationship you would prefer? 1 Any 2 Lying down 3 With flowers 4 If drunk, all of the above, plus a Poggenpohl kitchen.

To be a really good lover you must be:

1 Strong and tender 2 Under 20 stone 3 Good at barbecuing 4 In the same room

Tot up your score, divide by three and then ask the person sitting opposite you for their phone number. What have you got to lose? Only your dignity, your self-respect and half the contents of your house. Sounds like love to me.