It's a column and it's for opinion - welcome back to the Opinion Column featuring a guest writer each time.

Carole Blacher from Orpington is worked up about 'that' Strictly kiss controversy, or rather the media attention it's been receiving.

Agree or disagree with what Carole's saying? Add your comments below.

And if you've got an everyday bugbear you want to get off your chest, a topical issue to discuss or a local matter to highlight, you too could be one of our guest writers here on the Opinion Column. Email around 350 words on your chosen subject to editor simon.bull@london.newsquest.co.uk

We all have different tastes when it comes to our TV viewing, and current technology enables us to watch programmes when it is convenient for us to do so rather than adhering to a predetermined schedule.

I am not a great fan of Strictly Come Dancing. I quite enjoy watching the dance routines and witnessing the often incredible improvement in the performance of ‘celebrities’ who frequently begin with little or no dance expertise.

What I can’t tolerate is the other hour-and-a-half of flashbacks and miscellaneous ephemera employed to fill up the two-hour slot. And for me the same is true of many programmes of this ilk such as The Voice and the X Factor. But that’s fine since I can, if I wish, record them and fast-forward through the dross.

I like to catch up on the early evening news and I find the hour-long programme on BBC, subdivided into national and international news, weather and local news, generally quite informative. Every so often, however, the media will use the news to promote itself and its initiatives, or in the case of TV, its programmes.

I call this media self-cannibalism since it appears to be feeding off itself, presumably in the hope of growing bigger and more powerful than its competitors.

The most recent example occurred when the BBC news devoted a substantial proportion of its first half-hour to a supposedly controversial kissing episode involving a Strictly Come Dancing contestant and his partner.

The contagion spread to the tabloids who were running it as their main headline and several of the broadsheets also seemed to think this non-event worthy of, albeit minor, front-page space.

And it may well have been trending on Twitter along with Donald Trump's latest pearls of presidential wisdom.

Given its popularity, Strictly deserves its prime-time position in the BBC’s schedules, but is some minor celebrity’s peccadillo really worthy of a major slot on the main evening news?

If the partners had shot each other, or been poisoned by Russian spies, or come up with a viable Brexit plan, that would count as news. But a drunken snog at a party? Really? For heaven’s sake, stop serving up this trivial poppycock masquerading as news because it ISN’T.