Revisting familiar Dens

It's never nice when something repeats on you. Least of all when it wasn't much good the first time around, like doner meat and chips, or episodes of 'My Family'. Happily this is not the case with Dragons' Den as laughing at people that think they've come up with the solution to the eternal problem of cucumbers going rotten, or children not being excited by wellies, never gets old. Just in case it starts to though, those magnificent folks at the Beeb have come up with their own invention: 'Dragons' Den on Tour'. Yes, I know it's been on for ages but it only recently dawned on me that this was a thinly diguised way of re-cycling the series you're still watching on Dave. I'm quick like that.

The basic idea is that our beloved Dragons are travelling the country, catching up with both those that they laughed in the faces of and those that they invested in. I say 'invested in', but they invariably say 'took a punt'. This is slightly misleading as 'took a punt' kind of implies some form of jovial 'yeah, I'll have a go, it's a laugh innit' basis. But it isn't, its foundation is actually 'I'll give you some money that I wouldn't miss in order that I own 75% of your pointless, desperate soul. If I end up losing my doubloons, I will carve your soul from your unemployed shell with my gold-plated talons and remove my percentage thin slice by thin slice'. Happily it also provides the opportunity for those they laughed in the faces of to (sometimes) laugh back at them. Such as the fellow who lost out on investment in his online diamond retailer but has since been quite the success. True, the business operates out of his kitchen, but from little acorns grow great...er...diamond retailers. This is the new material. The rest of his segment deals with his original pitch where he was asked what the biggest seller on his website was and he replied "I don't know, cds or dvds I suppose". Yes, he had misheard the question and thought he was being asked what sold the most across the whole of the internet. The Dragon's thought he was mental and refused to part with a bean.

So this is the format for the entire show, fifteen minutes of old stuff for five minutes of new stuff. But what of the 'Tour'? Well, between clips you see a bus with the legend 'Dragons' Den on Tour' running down the side. I would really like to believe this is how the Dragons are getting about, every one of them couped up in the back feeling car-sick, Deborah Meadon giving the boys a sucky sweet and telling them not to sit over the wheelarch, then trying to cajole them into a chorus of 'One Man Went to Mow'. The thing I like most about thinking this is how they travel is because I can actually see Duncan Banatyne exiting the bus toilet waving his hand in front of his face and mumbling to Theo "ye might wanna give it a few minuts", causing Theo to crease up his little dormouse-face.

Sadly, the bus is utterly and completely irrelevant. Obviously the Dragons don't travel by bus, they arrive by limo, dusting off their noses, sweating champagne and zipping themselves up while an unseen model in the backseat wipes their mouth. Because that's how millionaires travel. Not stuck in a bus eating Fox's glacier mints in the hope that it distracts them from Banatyne's smelly poos.

Elsewhere, I notice that Beyonce has warned her fans not to be fooled by her music videos. “There are a lot of tricks involved, such as stretching legs. Anyone can look beautiful with tricks” she says.

This is presumably why Paul Daniels won’t die a virgin.