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…what I find more distressing: that the BBC could produce such a pile of bilge as Saturday’s Doctor Who (“The Unicorn and the Wasp”, or “the one where Agatha Christie is inadequately parodied whilst a giant CGI wasp is inadequately explained”), or that The Stage’s reviewer could, without a trace of irony, describe it as “the best edition of the show since its 1963 beginnings”.

Certainly the most creaky, ill-conceived, poorly-executed and illogical edition of the show since its 1963 beginnings.

Actually, that’s not fair. There was the one with the Doctor’s daughter… er… last week.

And has anybody else noticed that they’re lighting the show like it’s the 1980s all over again? Even in 1920s costume drama the LX man found a use for his pink gel…

…are we going to have to watch a lengthy scene in which Martha says goodbye to the Doctor?

For that matter, how much further can they get through this series without a single decent episode?

The man is utterly crazy. But very funny with it.

Just watch this. And then, you know, never be able to sleep again.

I’ve just had Barclaycard’s online insecurity check decide I’m not me… while listening to John Finnemore’s sketch about credit card security codes.

I hate reality. At least John’s world has jokes.

Some people may have previously been aware of Heil Honey, I’m Home, a 1990 British sitcom cancelled – for some reason – after only one episode. Apparently it helps to know that it’s satirising 1930s politics within the context of a parody of US 1950s sitcoms…

…sorry about the long silence. I’m MDing a satirical sketch show at the moment and it’s rather taken it out of me. Whatever “it” really is.

If you get bored while you’re waiting for me to get “it” back, have a listen to the wonderful John Finnemore, Apparently.

It just took me three attempts to spell the word “maybe”.

First time round it came out as “maby”, which I could see was going to be wrong even as I was writing it. I decided to try it without the “y”, which I felt was getting in the way, and came out with “mabie”, which was arguably even further from the truth and a silly thing to do because I knew there was a “y” involved somewhere.

I suppose the question is, how long before I am reduced to dribbling and gutteral snorting, assuming this can only get worse?

I dreamt that I was at a Footlights alumni event – not a performance, really, but just a tiny room with old Footlighters standing up and doing old material for each others’ enjoyment (like that would ever happen…). A young Dudley Moore was sitting behind me making sarcastic comments about everyone because he thought it was all a bit crap and wanted to be the centre of attention (I know Dudley Moore was never at Cambridge, but my subconscious seems to have a problem with facts), and next to me James Aylett gave me an encyclopaeidic commentary about all the performers and their material.

Then James Bachman got up with some random bloke and they sat on stools with guitars, and when he strummed a chord the whole room erupted and applauded ecstatically. And James Aylett said, “oh, brilliant, they’re doing the fudge song!”

In my dream, at least, I was well aware of the reputation of the fudge song – it had been spoken of in hushed tones when I was in Footlights as the damndest funniest song ever written by a Footlighter ever.

In actual fact, the song turned out to be a musical setting of the food chain of sea creatures, set to an old musical hall tune. I couldn’t hear all of the words because people were laughing so uproariously and singing along (even Dudley Moore begrudgingly stopped making sarcastic comments) – but I remember feeling a mixture of envy that the song could provoke such a huge response, and bewilderment because it seemed to me that it wasn’t very funny at all.

I woke up before they reached any kind of punchline.