IS MISERY the new celebrity? Flick through the TV listings, for example, and you'll see such tearfests as The Half-Ton Man, Aliens Stole My Children and The Boy Born Without a Head (Who Went On to be a Hat Model) - OK, I may have made one, or perhaps two, of those up, but you get the picture.

But browse the bookstands if it's real suffering you're after - the more miserable your childhood, the more likely you are to get an invite from Oprah or Richard and Judy; and the greater the abuse, the more those tills will ring out.

An American (naturally) called Dave Pelzer is credited with kicking off this tidal wave of woe, with his memoir A Child Called It, recounting the abuse, starvation and torture he suffered at the hands of the very person who should have been protecting him from the bad things in life, ie his mother.

Over here, we had Constance Briscoe's Ugly, a sorry tale of how a black girl overcame her mother's cruelty to become a barrister and part-time judge.

I blame Frank McCourt myself. Remember when Angela's Ashes was all the rage? Maybe you do.

But can anyone explain to me how this depressing saga became so incredibly popular?

The only other misery memoir I've read is Mark Johnson's Wasted. Bournemouth-based Mark is a former drug addict and convict who turned his life around to become a tree surgeon and an adviser to Prince Charles - and his book, recently re-released in paperback, is a cracking read because the redemptive element (all good sob stories should have a happy ending) is so surprising and uplifting.

But that'll do for me. I won't be reading any more downbeat books. Instead I'll have a go at writing one.

Why, my childhood was so deprived we knew someone who lived in a council house, and didn't have a colour telly until I was at least 12.

My first football match - Lincoln against Colchester at Sincil Bank - finished goalless, and, as I recall, neither side so much as forced a corner.

My first day out at the cricket was more successful, as I saw South Africa's Graeme Pollock smash England for a century before lunch. But, oh woe is me, I emerged from Trent Bridge so sunburnt I looked like a lobster with a timeshare in Tenerife.

Day trips involved feeling car-sick all the way to Skegness (beat that for a destination of doom, Mr McCourt), and I once bit into a sandwich contaminated with a vile and exotic new foodstuff known as mayonnaise.

Oh, it was hell all right, and now I'm revisiting similar misfortunes on my own offspring.

As they say, what goes around, comes around.

So my poor little 'uns must make do with a PlayStation2, even though PS3s have been out for ages, and, get this, they haven't even got tellies in their bedrooms.

Through the looking glasses

SCIENTISTS have invented a pair of smart glasses that, it is claimed, will end the problems of people who are constantly forgetting where they put things.

The Japanese (of course) call their invention Smart Goggle.

The wearer, rather than turning the house upside down in search of the car keys, simply tells the glasses what it is they are looking for, and the eyewear, fitted with tiny recording technology, takes you to the last place you saw those pesky keys.

Brilliant! That's the other half's birthday present sorted.

On second thoughts, though, there could be a problem - because as well as constantly mislaying her car keys, she can never find her darned spectacles either.