Reality TV - Saudi Style

The life of a reality TV star is never an easy one (do I hear scoffs or sniggers in the background ?) - especially not when, in addition to being mobbed by hundreds of male and female fans wanting to kiss you (a trauma in itself), you also have to contend with, er, the vice squad.

Hisham Abdel Rahman, 24, winner of this year's Star Academy, was apparently mobbed by male and female fans wanting to kiss him and shake his hand in Kingdom Tower Mall.

Religious police patrolling the area deemed the scene "improper" and tried to break up the crowd...when Rahman (incidentally also the name of my landlord - no relation surely - well in Turnpike Lane you never know) refused to leave he was forcibly escorted out and taken to the offices of the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (I'm sure the Taleban had one of these but seeing as Saud is our noble ally in the war on t'urr it would be churlish to make such comparisons) for" interviewing", according to the Arab News.

He was freed and flown back to his home town of Jeddah after an intervention from the office of the Riyadh governor, it was reported...

Now the sanitised version (for the benefit of any defamation lawyers reading this) Mr Rahman told the Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat he was neither detained or mistreated saying it was "merely purposeful rumours".

"What really happened was that a Committee member approached me, with all due respect, and asked me not to stay among a big crowd. I took my family members (away)... until the crowd disappeared and then we left for Jeddah as if nothing had happened," he said.

Given a choice between Gary Rhodes or Gordon Ramsey hurling abuse at me or, alternatively, being "interviewed" by the Saudi vice squad I think I'd pick the former...well actually its a tough one isn't it ?