Can one be too boring to appear on reality TV? Too wet to go in the water? Too dumb to partake in a GMTV phone quiz? Despite the self-reflective, nay, almost Confucian quality to these questions, they are not a selection of titles from the self-help section of your local bookshop. Even more surprisingly, the answer to one of these questions turns out to be, actually yes. Best of all, the answer involves a Palin.

The Palin family has been busy of late, even by its own industrious standards. Sarah has been hard at work tweeting her horror at plans to build an Islamic centre near Ground Zero in New York and, in doing so, reinventing the English language and comparing herself to Shakespeare. All that and in under 140 characters, too. Even more shocking than the revelation that Palin has heard of Shakespeare has been her spirited, if unfortunately racist defence of New York City, that epicentre of her frequently invoked "East Coast elitism". To those of us who come from and/or live in New York, this is an interesting volte-face and one that we have had to get used to in recent years: to Palin, Fox News and the fun lovin' tea partyists, New York is generally the antithesis to some madey-uppy heartland demographic; when the chance arises to use 9/11 to indulge in casual racism, New York becomes America's vulnerable crown jewel.

But in a move of almost Greek-tragedy proportions, Palin has been overshadowed by her own daughter, Bristol. Last week Bristol announced her engagement to the father of her child, the adorable Levi Johnston, in the traditional Christian manner, on the cover of Us magazine. Judging from her terse press release ("Bristol is ultimately in charge of determining what is best for her"), Mama Palin was less than thrilled with this turn of events, but worse has transpired. Naturally, Bristol and Levi assumed that their marriage would be lovingly witnessed by God and His modern day equivalent, reality TV. However, according to reports "network honchos" have turned down the planned programme because "neither [Bristol nor Levi] have personalities". Now, to the five people who have been watching the current series of Big Brother, this doubtless makes Bristol and Levi sound like reality-TV naturals, but apparently not.

If Sarah was wary about her daughter's marriage being made into a TV programme, then surely her being turned down for one is even worse, considering so much of her political image has been based on personality and family. Only now it turns out that a member of her family doesn't even have enough personality for a country that has a TV programme called I Didn't Even Know I Was Pregnant (which, for the record, Bristol didn't appear on either).

Levi has reportedly offered to "bring in his sister and other relatives to make it work". This would be his drug dealing mother and his sister Mercede, author of a highly recommended blog.

This presents an interesting quandary for Sarah Palin, one even trickier to navigate than her love/hate affair with New York. Palin has always claimed that hokey ignorance and a "redneck" background are far more important qualifications for a politician than a basic knowledge of geography and the English language.

And yet, in the Johnstons, Bristol has found a family – going by her mother's criteria – more "real American" than her own. Thus, to criticise them would make her sound, well, elitist. That the Johnstons apparently have more TV appeal is just the lemon juice in the wound. This is the problem with celebrating stupidity, Sarah: stupid people win.

News that the Daily Mail's website, Mail Online, has had a 72% year on year growth of unique browsers comes as no surprise to this unique browser. There's something about the website's tangy tonal mix of a salacious uncle, a nosey passive-aggressive neighbour and a caller to John Gaunt's radio show that, ooh, just gives me the hit I crave whenever there is work to be done but I would rather procrastinate by giving myself a momentary lobotomy.

Yet even through the haze of my addiction I remain a loyal employee. So to help the Guardian boost its own numbers, I shall make use of my years of hard study of Mail Online by writing in the Mail's clearly irresistible style. However, because I do not have the access to paparazzi photos of unknown US reality TV stars and Katie Holmes, I must use my own humble self as the subject: "Not so glam now! Hadley dares to leave the house at 9am without any make up." "Hadley enjoys the sun in a denim miniskirt – but how old is TOO OLD to show one's legs? Our top writers discuss." "Shadow or cellulite? Hadley flashes some unfortunate mottling as she gets on the bus." "Tea for two? No, just one, actually: Sad Hadley cuts a lonely figure as she buys just one cup of tea in the office canteen." "Hadley wears this summer's 1950s trend, but at her age maybe she should think more about what flatters her instead of what's fashionable."

"TOO FAT" "Hadley and mysterious friend eat their sandwiches outside – but is there more to this friendship than meets the eye?" "Hadley and male colleague talk about 'work' at Hadley's desk. Our resident body language expert analyses what their looks REALLY say." "TOO THIN" "What a difference two decades make! The summer sun shows how much Hadley's skin has changed since this photo taken 20 years ago." "As Hadley tries to drink her cares away with friends after work we ask, why ARE women reaching for the bottle so much these days?" "TOO FAT" "Worse for wear, Hadley stumbles home after ANOTHER night out. But, warns a former self-described feminist, these not-so-young women will regret their selfish, irresponsible behaviour."

There. That should do the business.