TELL you what, I reckon that Gary Barlow can handle himself.

The housewives’ favourite might well have a talent for making women go weak at the knees with his finely crafted love songs (aided by Jason Orange with his top off, dancing next to him), but that doesn’t mean he would shy away from a scrap when it came down to it.

That’s not just my view. It’s my wife’s as well. As a judge on ITV’s X Factor, Gaz has spent the summer dishing out a fair bit of verbal to rubbish and/or deluded turns who think they can sing.

On occasion, they have not taken kindly to criticism. And when things have threatened to go a bit awry — they refuse to leave the stage, for example — Gary will step up to personally hook ’em off, without any apparent concern for his safety. I think that’s because he’s a secret hard man.

Watching Saturday night’s instalment, an angry Brummie confronted the judges to demand an explanation for his exit from the show. Gary was the first one out of the private judges’ room to hand out a bit of constructive criticism. He looked the guy in the eye without blinking and told him what was what. It was like seeing a bouncer addressing a 16-year-old outside a pub on GCSE results day: “I don’t care how much it means to you, you’re not coming in, Sunshine.”

“He looks like he can handle himself you know,” I said to Mrs Short.

“Yeah, but only cos he’s got a massive minder stood just off camera,” she snorted back. “The bloke would only get one punch in before Gary’s lad took him down,”

she added. “Good point, but look at how he’s standing. Classic pre-fight stance. He’s ready if it gets ugly. And he’s confident. He must do kung-fu or karate or something,” was my insight.

I even Googled “Gary Barlow” and “Kung Fu” later — and though surprisingly little of relevance came up, my wife agreed with my Saturday night telly logic. Barlow might well wax lyrical about regret when he spots your lipstick mark still on his coffee cup. But we reckon he’s probably harder than many a classic tough guy, such as Jason Statham, who will probably turn into a simpering luvvie at the first sign of trouble in real life.

Now we’re finding it difficult to watch any TV together without weighing up the rowing merits of the people on screen.

Fashion designer Julien MacDonald off Britain’s Next Top Model, for example. Not hard as such but he would never give up, he’d scratch and bite — get a bit nasty — and have a go at anyone, (possibly because he’s Welsh, we thought).

This new hobby may have damaged my TV watching enjoyment for good though.

Because the next time the critics are lauding an actor’s bravura performance in the latest BAFTAnominated drama, we’ll be arguing instead about their ability to land a roundhouse kick to Fearne Cotton’s head in a green room battle royale.