No Deal

I'm ill at the moment - sore throat, aching head - and behaving, as usual, like the world's worst patient: self-pitying, sullen, generally a bad lot to be around. Fortunately my wife is possibly the world's finest nurse, so it sort of balances out.

At the moment she's watching the new programme on Channel 5 here: Deal or No Deal. It's a sort of game show, with which we are very familiar having watched it a lot in December when we were in England, Mum being a huge fan. The English version is so much more palatable than the one here that it's embarrassing. I never thought I'd think of Noel Edmonds as something of a sophisticate, but that's what local tv does to you.

Why do gameshow contestants here feel obliged to shout all the time?