You might have seen the report the other day that Gay Byrne is to return to our TV screens to host a light entertainment show on Saturday nights, replacing Saturday Live.

Since he retired from RTE, Gaybo has returned to present the comedy series Make 'em Laugh, to front the recent People in Need fund-raising event and to express interest in presenting the Irish version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

I can now reveal that Gay is also to take over from Bryan Dobson on the evening news, to ring the Angelus bells each evening, to guest-star on The Last of the Summer Wine, to produce Telly Bingo, to join the commentary team for the Formula One race season, to co-present Den 2 Weekend with Liz Bonnin, to front a garden makeover series with Charlie Dimmock, to play Phoebe's new love interest in Friends, and to haunt Miley forever as the ghost of Biddy in Glenroe.

Gay will take up these positions when he comes to the end of his term chairing the RTE panel set up to identify new TV talent.

Meanwhile, judges of the Betty Trask award for traditional fiction have complained that cliches and cynicism dominate the minds of many of today's young novelists. Apparently, the five novels shortlisted for the award were "original and risk-taking", but the standard of most of the others shocked the judges, said thriller writer Frances Fyfield, chairman of the five-member panel: "We were all a bit appalled. You got the impression that the typical Friday night ambition of a girl of 21, in magazine publishing, is to get off your face."

Many of the novels had apparently been inspired by a desire to imitate the fictional character Bridget Jones, a thirtysomething engaged in a constant search to lose a stone and find a man.

Another judge, Angela Huth, said: "In a large majority of those we rejected, the writer is thinking, `If I give it sex and takeaways, and drugs and drink, and sloppy language that will be easy to read, then I'll get a £600,000 advance.' "

This is slightly disturbing from my own point of view, since I am working hard on a novel for which I had high hopes in next year's Betty Trask competition, the Booker Prize, the Whitbread, the James Tait award, the Guardian Fiction prize, the Impac bash and the whatchamacallit award for Best Second Novel, though my first is yet to be published.

My book does, admittedly, bear certain similarities to those frowned on by the Trask judges, but to heap scorn on it and imply it is therefore worthless is a little unfair.

My main character is a feisty young Irish lady by the name of Bridgie Robinson, who obviously is not modelled on Bridget Jones, even if Bridgie does happen to be 36, survives on McDonalds burgers, is mildly concerned about her weight and with a nice young man, or indeed almost any age man, with gsoh, if poss.

It is also fair to say that Bridgie is more or less obsessed with sex and boyfriends, or the lack of both, has been known to accept the odd tab of E and share a well-rolled joint, and is partial at times (all times) to a gin-and-tonic or seven.

Bridgie is also a keen partygoer and party-giver, and has always enjoyed any party that is not actually political.

My problem as a novelist is that having reached this stage of development in my story, and having mixed in very generous dollops of sex, drink and drugs, and exhibited almost every facet of Bridget's character, I am still only on page five. And those who keep up with developments in the literary world know full well that for the standard £600,000 advance, six pages are essential.

I may have to create an entire new character, perhaps a friend for Bridgie. She could possibly be a younger person, perhaps a young woman in the exciting field of magazine publishing, aged 21 or thereabouts, someone to whom Bridgie could pass on the experience of her years, and with whom Bridgie could tap into the Zeitgeist, whatever that is. I might call her Beatrice.

This would inject the element of tradition that the Betty Trask judges seem to be so uptight about, the old fuddy-duddies. Basically, Bridgie and Beatrice would get off their faces together ever Friday night, or, if publishers and judges are going to be that fussy about originality, on Thursdays.