New job might just stop me being late!

I ONCE watched an episode of Jeremy Kyle that made me very late for work.

The father waiting for DNA test results told Jeremy he didn’t think he was the dad because the kid had ginger hair — and Chinese people rarely had ginger children.

Boom. How could you possibly leave the house for work not knowing if this man had defied genetics and spawned a redhead? He wasn’t the dad, by the way. The other show that hooks me so much I can’t leave before the results are in is Homes Under The Hammer — and unlike Kyle’s programme, I don’t feel like I need to shower after watching it.

This stalwart of daytime telly is brilliant, a property-lover’s dream and a right old giggle with its puns and clever song choices.

And, as I’m writing this column, I’m breathing into a paper bag because guess who the show’s new presenter is? Me! You might have read in the Tele that I’m joining Martin Roberts (yes, the I’m a Celeb one) and Dion Dublin (knew his way around a football pitch) on the show and we will be appearing together from June (see picture below).

This puts paid to the notion you should give up on your dream job after kids because someone somewhere looked at my screen test and said: “We’ll take the girl who’s heavily pregnant and who’s soon to have three kids under three-and-a-half.”

If that’s not a story of equality I don’t know what is.

I say my dream job but I really mean my second one, because I write for the Tele after all and average days are made tip-top when a reader emails me.

Like Michael Stewart did this week, offering congratulations and hoping I would keep my column as he loves it — to which I replied that so long as they keep me I’ll be here because I love it too.

With the new gig, in case you’ve not seen it (and if not where have you been as it has been on every weekday on BBC One for 13 years?), the show starts with a presenter looking round a house, then meeting the person who bought it at auction and returning when it’s transformed — resulting in before and after comparisons.

I only wish auctions were more ingrained in our culture in Scotland, as they are in England and Wales where bidding to buy seems commonplace.

Rather than a flight to Birmingham, Cardiff or London I could saunter along to the Ferry to view a two-bedroom flat followed by a wee half in the Fish. Or a meander down the Perth Road to a Victorian terraced house followed by a light refreshment in Braes.

Now that, dear reader, really would be the perfect job.