I'm not a Celebrity (and won't eat worms)

Sooo excited! "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!" starts a new season tonight. Lovable duo Ant and Dec will be hosting as another set of celebrity wannabes-for-the-second-time-around put themselves through their paces. The challenges will include physical, mental and, of course, edible.

During the eating trials contestants are required to eat or drink foods made up of insects such as crickets, mealworms, witchetty grubs, cockroaches and spiders. Then there are the real meat dishes of animal genitalia, brains, tongues, eyes and tails. 

Obviously any Celebrity Vegetarians would not be able to compete. Those who remember vegan Gillian McKeith will recall her refusal to do almost all the challenges for fear of, well, everything. Heaven knows why she agreed to appear on the show. Probably the lure of being in the spotlight once again and earning a not-inconsiderable amount of money.

I love the programme and would relish some of the challenges, not least to overcome some of my own phobias (of heights and edges particularly). However, there is no way I could possibly eat or drink the meat and fish, neither in a challenge nor as a reward. The daily rice and beans would suit me just fine.

Somebody should come up with a vegetarian version. Eating slimy exotic mushrooms and drinking truffle oil would be my own idea of hell.

Instead, I shall sit back and enjoy the show, perhaps with a glass of Baileys ... after all, if IAACGMOOH is on ... it must be nearly Christmas!