WHAT YOU WILL NEED.....

1. THE FIRST THING YOU'LL NEED - is a candy floss, Barbie & Ken, cheese burger, pop idol wannabe mentality and no experience of life outside your pink fluffy bedroom. If you're a girl you'll need to start slapping on make up at three years old to be ready for a career in children's television by the age of 12 by which time you'll be using a trowel and spray gun to get enough on your face. Remember girls lots of glitter in the hair and lip gloss. If you're a boy, you've got to wear the right street cred clothes (like everybody else, don't be original) and have the daftest hair cut in Britian and be cool. That means you'll have to go with every fashion fad going and be a pop idol lookalike with all the charisma that goes with it - approximately zero!

2. CAN YOU SHOUT - You'll need to be able to shout at the camera because apparently British children only seem to understand presenters who shout raucously at them whilst laughing manically as though smacked out of their heads on cocaine.

3. HAVE YOU GOT GOOD DICTION - If so, forget it. These days it is essential to be as badly spoken as possible with a thick regional accent or the vocal range of a fair ground barker. Being well spoken is not politically correct these days. Everyone should learn to express themselves like John Prescott or Del Boy and Rodney. Nobody talks posh these days. It just isn't cool.

4. DO YOU LIKE CARTOONS AND QUIZ SHOWS - You'll have to. There's virtually nothing else

5. CAN YOU APPEAR SINCERE IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA - Well don't worry if you can't. Not many of them can and apparently children don't notice or care. Just as long as you're good at SHOUTING!!!! (Translation for cockney readers - SHAAAAAARTIN')

6. ARE YOU AMBITIOUS - You're not alone. Most presenters look on children's TV as a stepping stone to higher things. They want to get on like Ant and Dec. Sadly there aren't many with Ant and Dec's talent but I suppose you could end up on a travel show or make over program.

7. GIRLS - YOUR TASTE IN CLOTHES - You'll need to have the sartorial elegance of a Whitechapel hooker. Looking tarty and overtly sexual is just what young British girls aspire to thanks to children's Television and programs like Pop Idol. They can't wait to get into bare midriffs and thongs, anything that will get them "...more boys...!"

8. CAN YOU TALK TO CHILDREN WITHOUT GIVING A BUGGER WHAT THEY SAY - Well most children's presenters appear to (particularly the girls). They spend more time checking to make sure they're in shot and looking pretty. "Sod the brats... I've got my kureer to fink abaat!"

9. TRY TO BELIEVE YOU'RE IMPORTANT - Nobody else will but if you strut around believing you're huge and talented and all the little kids are looking up to you it'll help blow your ego out of all proportion and very soon you'll be at that film premiere."This is the film star Tom Cruise and this is the million selling Madonna and this is er, Tracy Scream and Darren Yawn from Saturday morning children's telly." Ooooooo!

10. WORDS TO HELP YOU FIT IN - You'll need the correct language to blend in so before you go any further start repeating these helpful words and then start to pepper your language with them. FANTASTIC! BRILLIANT! THAT'S GREAT! BRILLIANT! (again) YEAH BRILLIANT! FANTASTIC! BRILLIANT! Actually, just keep saying brilliant and fantastic ad nauseam until even you've heard it more times than you care to.

11. AND FINALLY, DID WE MENTION SHOUTING - Can't be stressed to much. You must shout. There's lots of loud, endlessly loud music and crashing and noise so keep up the level of SHOUTING AND MORE SHOUTING, AND SHAAAAAARTIN' AND MANIC HYSTERIA, AND INCOHERENT CHATTER AND MORE SHAAAAAARTINK, AND NOISE AND .......................................................