Oh, boys eh?!

Vernon Kaye, until recently, was hard to place. He was just the annoying man on the television with the stupid Lego man hair who married the blonde who looked like the result of a drunken encounter between Cat Dealy and a frog.

An impoverished man’s Dermot O Leary, he was a hangover in human form on T4 , before taking the helm of “Family Fortunes”, joining the ranks of Amanda Holden in making you realise that you’d perhaps underestimated Les Dennis. It was hard to have an opinion on him, just like it’s difficult to find someone with a strong opinion on Habitat, The Lightning Seeds or the feeling of being mildly depressed you get at about 3 o’clock. That was before he became the grinning face of everything that is wrong with modern man.

The thirty five year old married man was caught sending explicit texts and Twitter messages to several glamour models. When, in a shock move that no one could have seen coming, one of the girls went to the press, he was forced to admit his digital dalliances in a grovelling press release. The newspapers joked he would definitely “be in the doghouse for the next few weeks”. Oh yes, they smirked, his other half won’t half give him grief, the cheeky monkey! The reports emphasised that nothing physical ever happened which is unlikely to be much consolation to his wife. “Listen babes- No fluids were exchanged, I just made it obvious in a very public manner that given the chance I most definitely would, if I wasn’t fettered by your Victorian values and the bloody Daily Mail” Men are biologically programme to cheat, pundits argued, it’s comes from their caveman roots. It’s interesting that they’ve managed to evolve the ability to digest cooked meat and use a Nintendo Wii but not keep it in their trousers isn’t it?

His wife Tess Daly had not only just given birth to his second child but was also just releasing a book about her pregnancy experiences. I’m sure the next edition will have a whole chapter on discovering your husband is a complete tool. What’s depressing is not just the sleazy, juvenile manner of his cheating it’s the women he has been lavishing all this attention on. Tess, his wife, is a stunner; a tall willowy blond, with a successful career who seems approachably down to earth. Women can identify with her, if only because we’ve all experienced some sexual harassment in the workplace and at least ours wasn’t broadcast live every Saturday night and involving Bruce Forsyth.

Yet the women that he was willing to risk his career, family and wife’s heart over are the plastic blondes most women hope men grow out of once they hit puberty. He met Rhian Sugden the twenty three year old page three girl, at a night club in Bolton and her claim to fame thus far was having once experienced Russell Brand. When a grown man chooses someone whose entire wardrobe seems to be wipe clean over a sexy woman in her prime, it’s depressing to put it mildly.

Also misunderstood by our moral standards is footballer Jon Terry, who can’t understand why given the fact that he’s very good at kicking a ball around a field, it doesn’t give him the right to stick his premier league into any fixture he likes. He was caught playing away from home with his teammates ex girlfriend Vanessa Perroncel, devastating his wife and humiliating his teammate.

His PR team deserve some sort of manipulation award for the way they’ve handled the story. They’ve bought her silence and there have been hints that other ladies who’ve also shown their support for their national side in a very physical way have also been kept quiet with money. Vanessa has been portrayed as a confused, vulnerable woman desperate to protect her son and get back with his father. This has mainly been achieved with lots of shots of her looking confused in an anorak. Meanwhile, Terry has been sold as a silly lad, fundamentally good, keen to get back with his childhood sweetheart, who he will definitely never ever cheat on again. It seems if you’re good at certain important things; football, TV presenting, it allows you to behave like a toddler. It doesn’t extend to other professions, you’ve never heard someone shrug their shoulders and opine “Well, what do you expect he is one of the world’s top dentists after all”. Recently, the poster boy for self indulgence, Gazza, was arrested twice in one day after spectacularly falling off the wagon. If only he’d just been a really good at something less important, say badminton or brain surgery, he might actually have had the chance to learn how to behave like a grown up.