I HATE conveyor belt romances like Four Weddings and Notting Hill, and Hugh Grant's bumbling ways have not endeared me to the generic success of 'Oh So British' films which are over-sentimentalised for an all-American audience.

But there is something about the latest in the line, Love Actually, that melted my heart and gave me some hope that I may actually be whisked off my feet by a prime minister one day, especially if I become a tea-lady with a cute Cockney accent.

With its chocolate-box Christmas setting and its obvious attempt to warm the cockles of the frostiest of hearts, I had written it off as a cunningly marketed release for the festive season - and one I was going to avoid. But a friend who has gone from being a fellow cynic to an outrageous softie after she got married this summer convinced me it was going to be worth the popcorn money.

And I've got to say, she was right. Hugh Grant was still doing his floppy hair thing and London looked like a safe, beautiful place that only well-spoken people inhabit, but, nevertheless, I became a seasonal sucker for all things romantic.

The prime minister fell for the tea lady and a shy writer ended up proposing to a Portugese maid who couldn't understand him but, hey, love works in mysterious ways.

Perhaps the reason I enjoyed it so much was because it also included the dysfunctional aspects of love and lust - obsession with your best friend's new bride, a wife's realisation of her middle-aged husband's adultery. And just like in life, some of these uncomfortable bits weren't resolved.

But as most of the characters were given the most improbable of romantic endings, I sat with a tear in my eye and felt I could easily have given my empty Coke bottle a long, sloppy Christmas snog.

Just when I thought my feelings had finally chimed with the status quo, I was once again out on my own. As the lights in the cinema slowly came back on, a couple behind us got up and said: "What a waste of popcorn". I looked over to my friend and saw her grimacing at the screen. Some people are just such cynics.

Is it up to us single folk to keep the hope of romantic destiny alive?

MEANWHILE, reality shows on the small screen are definitely pushing the frontiers towards 'Moronic TV' these days. Along with all those ridiculous TV-As-Substitute-For-Life shows which include anything from watching people argue in a jungle to watching them argue with their neighbours or their swapped wives, now we are given Holiday Showdown, a reality show which places two families on holiday together, in the hope that they have a bust up.

I watched it last week and wept for the children who sat, heads bowed, as their parents bickered in front of the camera, gloomy with the realisation that they would be ridiculed for the rest of their school lives.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps we are extending the boundaries of the cult of celebrity and these unremarkable families on unremarkable holidays become local celebrities when they finish humiliating themselves on screen.

But there is only one thing sadder than actually staring on reality TV, and that is watching it. Sadly, I only realised this as the finishing credits were rolling.