Under the Advisory Council’s plans—which were set to receive an overwhelming endorsement in the House of Commons this morning—the set of any given reality show will be equipped with a bright orange chair in the shape of a huge pair of baggy trousers. Evicted or eliminated participants in shows such as Big Brother, Fool Around With My Girlfriend, and that other one where some dozy tart tries to work out if the bloke she fancies is gay, will be ‘invited’ to sit in the ‘ejector seat’, before being ‘encouraged’ to light the fuse attached to the six tons of rocket fuel placed under their chair by the lucky winner of a viewers’competition. The contestant will then be launched into the firmament at fifteen times the speed of sound, after which they will orbit the earth for all eternity—or until they are rescued by a passing alien who's looking for something to impregnate.

When we questioned the likelihood of such an encounter, a Channel 4 spokestypeperson told Utterpants: "Look, three million Americans can't be wrong, mate. If dog ugly birds from Nebraska who are no strangers to a fish supper can get abducted, cock-hungry slappers like Orlaith will get sucked out of their knickers faster than we can shoot them into orbit."

The enforced change, whilst something of a radical revision for the reality TV industry, is not expected to affect the number of applicants selling their grandmothers to get on the shows in 2006—a figure predicted to exceed 62 million, or roughly 106.28% of the population.

The Council’s initiative comes after months of concern from economists and media experts alike, who fear that the country simply cannot sustain its current levels of celebrity hysteria. “Given the implausibly high fees commanded by ex-reality show contestants for opening new Supermarkets and Lesbian Single Young Mothers Centres, and given the incredibly high recruitment rate in the industry, it was clear that drastic action had to be taken,” said Claude Beric, a surprisingly well-informed administrator at the London School of Economics. “If new reality series continue to appear every few weeks, with brief tabloid careers for their alumni increasing at an exponential rate, then within seven years the UK will be declared bankrupt and will be officially recognised as a third-world state. Shooting contenders into space is for the good of the nation. Now please excuse me, I have a mountain of Channel 4 application forms to complete.”

The new measures will not affect all reality show contestants, however. Where the individuals can reasonably be described as being ‘already slightly famous’, in series such as I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! and Celebrity Love Island for example (although the latter was still a matter of debate at the time of press), eliminated participants will not be exterrestrialised, but will remain earthbound to walk free at the end of filming. This is due to the Council’s judgement that existing celebrities who have got their tits out to achieve recognition should be exempted from the new law. “Yeah be fair, be fair” said a relieved Nadia Almada yesterday.

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Story © Donald Twain 2005. Picture and construction © utterpants.co.uk / 060705