And the winners are...

TV previewing is a bit like going into a bar when you're gagging for a pint and being forced to drink orange juice.

You're at work, supposedly alert and suspicious of simple folk wielding obvious plotlines, plunging necklines or large cash prizes. It's easy to come over all puritanical.

Watching TV in your own time, on the other hand, tends to be more akin to numbing your brain with lots of beer and staring stupidly into space. It's funny how the latter is so much more preferable, as I learned while on maternity leave this summer. Strange how I didn't even entertain the option of a Cutting Edge or Modern Times, going straight for old sitcom repeats and an obscene amount of daytime TV. The women on Live Talk became my new best friends.

My tolerance levels sank below sea level and allowed people like Andi Peters and even John Leslie to crash through my taste barriers. It's been a genuine learning experience. I discovered that when you really want to drown in mindless crap after a heavy day, TV is not the opiate of the people at all. The success of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and Blind Date is just a front. There's actually far too much intelligent, worthy stuff on.

With this in mind, I proudly present lots of backslapping and just plain slapping in the Hot Tickets TV Awards, which gives a grand and confusing overview of the year 2000 on the box.

The Delia Smith Award For Sauciest Lips

In actual fact, Delia's are a little tight even if everything that came out of them this year either caused a fight or sold a lot of condiments. It's just a coincidence, of course, that the two most popular TV chefs this year happen to have sumptuous mouths - Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson. Although the latter is more attractive, the former has more of the proverbial lip, so to speak (this is all getting very tenuous, isn't it?), particularly with his gigantic and all-pervading contract with Jamiesbury's. So, while Nigella really is posh, Jamie Oliver is more your Bosh, Bosh, Bosh Spice.

The Neil Morrissey Award For Inexplicable Omnipresence

Davina McCall is the new Cilla Black. It doesn't matter how far she pushes her breasts to her throat (is she trying to use them as ear-warmers?) she is not a woman. She's a spoon. Close second is Craig Phillips from Big Brother - living proof that democracy doesn't work. Indeed, why beat about the bush? All the Big Brother contestants - line 'em up.

The General Pinochet 'Hello, I'm Still Working' Cameo Award

The most trendy answer is cult director and naughty boy Peter Bogdanovich telling Lorraine Bracco in The Sopranos that she's drinking too much. Casting him as The Shrink's Shrink certainly gets The Sopranos - which is obviously aiming to be an entire media studies course - the Anorak Award. The winner however is Alan Alda, famous (in the Seventies, again) for the TV series M*A*S*H, in which he played a hippie doctor, turning up in ER playing the same character - only with Alzheimer's and as proof that foolish New Age ideas cost lives. The trouble is, does anyone under 30 give a damn?

The William Shatner Talking Toupee Award

Bruce Willis in Friends. Either the producer forced the scriptwriters to include a line saying how wonderful/manly/handsome he is in every scene, or it was part of Bruce's contract. Along with getting to snog Jennifer Aniston and having a full head of hair. Either way, as guest slots go, this was definitely the most pointless and sycophantic.

Best Media Witch Hunt

Bit of a serious one. Interactive TV has certainly shown that the British public would still happily turn out for a good hanging. Witness the fervour with which poor Mel was voted out of the Big Brother house. And mainly by fellow women, I was ashamed to note. All she did was flirt with a couple of blokes and look good in a bikini. Burn the witch! I personally liked her, even if she did say, 'I lived with Norman Cook, yeah. He was really cool, actually.' The winner however, was Paula Yates who, like Princess Di before her, put an end to the constant slagging (again, mainly by women) by dying. Suddenly, everyone loved her.