Patrick Kielty is something of a mystery.  You see, all the fundamentals seem to be there to make him into the BBC's very own Graham Norton clone, he's a cheeky, chirpy, Irishman after all.  It should work.  But it doesn't.  To most, Patrick Kielty has the personality, flair and entertaiment presence of a potato.  And not a good potato either.  Not a potato that's been to RADA, or played a bit-part in The Bill.  An ordinary potato, a character-less potato, the Steve Penk of potato-dom.

At least that's what we thought.  But it seems that the Queens University in Belfast disagrees.  They have awarded Kielty with an honourary doctorate for services to performing arts. 

Kielty has a history with Queens University, having co-opened the Comedy Club at the Empire in Belfast while studying there. He is best known for his chat-show: Patrick Kielty Almost Live, and as co-presenter of the Fame Academy series.

After the ceremony, Kielty said: "John Cole was getting the honorary doctorate - you have this man who has had a political (journalism) career of 40 years telling interesting things about life.

"People were hanging on to every word. And you could see that as soon as I walked in, people were saying: 'Okay, we're in our 20s and you're in your 30s, what can we learn?' And basically from the speech they learnt nothing," he joked.