If I had to choose between appearing on Deal or No Deal with Noel Edmonds, playing a Nintendo Wii game or writing a 2,000-word essay about William Pitt's trade reforms, I'd probably pick the essay.

That's how much those first two options really don't appeal to me.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the homework option or, in fact, a choice when Nicola rang up the other day and told me to join her at her house to watch a recorded episode of Deal or No Deal.

Nicola really likes this programme. I have no idea why. It's even worse than Who Wants To Be A Millionaire or The Weakest Link.

At least Millionaire and Weakest Link contestants need at least one brain cell between them, if only to know the alphabet up to D so they can guess the answer with a one in four chance of getting it right.

But on Deal or No Deal, the only thing the contestants do is choose numbers written on boxes. Then whichever box the number corresponds to is opened and the amount of money they stand to lose is revealed.

This is a moment of high emotion for the variety of dull and senseless people who appear on the show.

When one woman shouted a random number and got a nice result, everyone clapped as if she'd selflessly thrown herself in front of car in the name of humanity.

Then we had to wait for about five hours while they all tried to work out if £250,000 was more money than £500. In the end, the woman went away with about 2,000 quid and a kiss on the cheek from Noel.

I couldn't work out if he actually had a purpose in the game or if he was just put there for show.

Not all of my brain cells were killed off by the mind-numbing irrelevance of the programme.

Nicola then introduced me to her Nintendo Wii. Being more of a computer girl, I'm still getting used to the idea that a Playstation 3 exists.

I was lost when Nicola explained that you're supposed to interact with the game on the TV screen by using the remote controller in the same way you'd swing a tennis racket. This makes your "mii" – a computer animated figure that you make of yourself – perform all the actions on screen that you're doing in real life with the remote.

I spent an hour swinging the remote, shaking it and even fitting it inside a special steering wheel that I used to drive computer-animated cars – in fact, I did everything with the stupid thing except throw it across the room in a temper tantrum.

It was quite fun, but if anyone was watching and couldn't see the screen they'd think the players were complete plonkers for taking swipes at thin air.

There's only so many times you can play a virtual game of tennis and still not manage to hit anything, so I announced that "mii" was going for a "wii", just to get away from the pile of games that beckoned Nicola to play them next.