– And the 2014 National Television Award for light entertainment before the watershed goes to….Haley Cropper for playing so convincingly a trendy transgendered, terminally ill, cancer patient, terrified of the Liverpool pathway….before finally topping herself to Vaughan Williams mournful dirge….that’s what we like to see! Good all round family entertainment that doesn’t require lengthy explanations to the kids.

Next year I expect a strong story line featuring Peter Dinklage as a left-handed comedian with a learning disability battling his demons as he evades the forces of Yewtree before adopting a Siberian Tiger with Emily Bishop. (If you have been affected by any issues in this episode please call Slater & Moron who will guide you through the trauma process.)

I rarely watch TV any longer; between the news of which wife beating, cheating, lying, low-grade union official has just been elected to the cabinet – in order to replace one who is resigning to spend more time on his legal defence; interspersed with wide eyed kids that will have died by the next ad break if I don’t cough up £2 by texting MUGGINS to some charity, and soap operas full of dysfunctional characters teaching those who go to bed before the watershed how grown-ups behave – there is nothing to see. Ex-politicians being cartwheeled round the dance floor with all the grace of a shopping trolley? Men who’s claim to fame was once being married to a set of 48DDD tits but who now earn a crust screaming as they are asked to eat a plate of wriggling worms? Women complaining that their last orgasm went on for three days?

My taxi-driver is signing up for a satellite service that will allow him to view British television. He’s been watching old episodes of Steptoe on the Internet. Thank-God I only have nine more trips to make; with any luck I shall have escaped his clutches before I have to figure out a lengthy explanation of the modern British idea of light entertainment – in French. I couldn’t even explain it in English.

Does nobody laugh in the UK any longer? Is it forbidden? Or are people just reluctant to admit that they have been in the company of a comedian?

Elsewhere, the American Mental Health experts have decided that paedophilia is not a sexual orientation (so offensive to suggest that it might be a life style choice, who would chose to be a BBC disc jockey? That is obviously something forced upon you by malign influences in your childhood) – an opinion shared by a clinical psychologist who has stated that it is the result of having a cross wired, intellectually deficient, left handed preference – and being short enough to walk into children’s Wendy houses. 400 Mail readers have lined up to say nonsense, it is an orientation and all left handed dwarves should be put to death – preferably by stoning. Which is a great attitude to take – until you give birth to your latest child – a left handed dwarf. Will you do the deed yourself Oh green arrowed ‘Minger of Leicestershire’?

And the Internet has acquired a new adjective – it is henceforth to be known as the ‘Toxic Digital World‘. Toxic! Apparently it kills small children as surely as the New Forest’s latest danger to all of 17 dogs….Did you know that if you have a severely depressed teenage daughter under the care of a famous psychiatric clinic then it is the ability of the Internet to publish photographs of her self harming which is responsible for her death? She’d have been absolutely fine, self harming away, seeing the shrink once a week, were it not for the Internet.

Useless information part 326. Did you know that only men with small testes like to look after small children? Those who are more generously endowed are more likely to say ‘You wanted it, you look after it‘.

See, the Internet makes me laugh – which is more than I can say for British TV.

Off I go again, only another 2,800 km more. I’m taking motorways between Bergerac and Bordeaux as my specialist subject on Mastermind you know.

Talk amongst yourselves.