A nine week tour?

Reality TV: there's so much of it that it can only be a matter of time before it blows up in someone's face. Or before someone submerges in it. Ireland is busy working on the latter scenario, via a show called Cabin Fever, in which the usual format of a selected group of individuals forced into some cooperative/competitive scenario was to be achieved by putting them in a boat and having them sail around Ireland for nine weeks. One slight problem: last Friday, the boat sank! It was rumoured that no-one was at the helm when the boat ran aground off the Donegal coast.

Ireland is a surprisingly litigious place and it seems likely that the contestants will decide that the legal jackpot far outweighs the original prize that was up for grabs. In America, this setback would simply be viewed as an opportunity to do a new reality show with cameras in the courtroom, but Ireland's courtroom rules make this difficult. State broadcaster RTE may be worried not so much about the legal damages, which they can probably dump on to the production company, but the image factor...heard the one about the Irish reality TV show? Can a Saturday Night Live skit be far behind?