How to become a TV chat show host...

...Austrian style.

OK, I know Austria has been taking some stick in the international press for the past month or so for being a haven for psychopaths and other assorted wackos, but OK, I think I've seen it all now.

Not long ago, to be able to front any sort of show on television or radio one had to have certain qualifications. You had to be a journalist, author, a recognised critic, or an expert in a certain field. Think of Brian Walden, the Dimblebys, Frost, Parkinson, Aspel. And Gordon Ramsay, lol.

These days you can get on TV on the back of any alleged claim to fame. You can be a "Wag" like Coleen McLoughlin. You could get your tits out, like Jordan. You can even have a sordid affair with a footballer, like Rebecca Loos.

But all of these examples pale into insignificance when one hears that Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian girl who was kidnapped at the age of ten and held in a cellar for eight years by a psychopath, is to front her own new show, Natascha Kampusch meets...

What next? "Abductee" Shannon Matthews to host her own show on bedroom furniture? Kate and Gerry McCann to host their own show on modern parenting skills?