Festive bitch fight – makes a change from the Queen’s speech

There are a few enduring memories that will stay with me of Christmas this year. And deffo near the top of the list is the fact that December 25, 2009 was the day I found out who Belen Esteban (above) is.

Your TV highlight in England might be watching someone get married or murdered in EastEnders. It might even be the Queen’s speech. But in Spain, this year at least, it was watching Belen Esteban, Spain’s biggest TV personality, have a full on, in your face screaming match bitch fight with Jaime Peñafiel, a royal correspondent. If it sounds weird, that’s because it is.

Me and the bloke had arrived back from a six-hour darts tournament (there’s not much else to do on Christmas day) at the local bar to find his family sitting down to watch some of it. They were all very interested in having a look at her new nose.

To me it looked like it had been put on wonky – like she was trying to smell her ear, but judging by older footage of her, it was a vast improvement.

You found it kind of hard to concentrate on the nose though, what with her screaming “usted es un cobarde, co-bar-de!” (you are a coward, co-ward) every five minutes, tapping her foot like a rabbit on speed, wobbling her head from side to side, rolling her eyes, throwing her hands in the air, flicking her hair, barking indignantly and threatening to walk out. (not all at once mind) It was like Jerry Springer, Trisha and Jeremy Kyle all rolled into one.

Who is this woman, and why is she screaming? That was my question. The bloke’s family filled me in. basically Belen Esteban was a normal girl from Madrid (la chica del barrio) who was probably one of many women who had a thing going with this very famous bullfighter. But she succeeded where so many others failed – she got pregnant by him.

After her daughter was born in 1999, the bullfighter didn’t really want anything to do with his new baby (a la Jude Law) and Belen has since made money talking about herself and her daughter… to the point where the child protection agency got involved. Is there an equivalent in the UK? I’m tempted to say Jordan, but at least she actually has a job, of sorts.

So here was Belen, having it out with the royal correspondent, who over the last year and a half has being saying nasty things about her on TV and in the press. And with the audience baying, and the host not really mediating like he was supposed to, she told him everything she thought of him. Screaming like a banshee. he couldn't get a word in edgeways.

He said the day after that she had been like “the girl from The Exorcist” and he was right.

And the weirdest thing was that at the end of it all a guy who was basically a fat blonde version of Aladdin came out and gave her a Christmas present. (He was Rappel, a famous fortune teller, in case you’re wondering.)

Seriously, I thought British TV was on the slide. They’ve apparently got her back on to do a special TV show for New Year’s Eve. I won’t be watching that one.