Every dinnertime, while attempting to digest my "gallbladder-friendly" crackers with "low-fat salad cream" and "inedible-Iceland-cheese-slices", I watch the American sit-coms on Channel 4. Today, however, it wasn't until the advert break that I realised that "Jesse" had been replaced by something called "Nicke". Fifteen minutes I'd watched this drivel without even noticing it was a different programme. Same characters, same plots, same jokes (if you can call them that), same premise...same bollocks to be perfectly frank

I realise that America is a violent society full of homeless people, of commercial tyrants, of sh*t-stirring evangelists, of guns and drugs, repression and capital punishment. And I also realise that these bland, meaningless middle-class sh*t-coms make for escapism under such circumstances.

But the truth is they're just not funny.

I read an article some time ago about how serial killers don't have the same emotions as normal people. Because they're incapable of feeling guilt, sadness, happiness etc. they learn to mimic other people's physical responses so as not to alienate themselves. As I struggled through the second half of "Nicke" today...or "Nike" or "Niblick" or whatever it was called...I realised that, despite it being so trite, the studio audience were howling with laughter. Every pathetic little snarl of sarcasm, every puerile retort or vague expression of stupidity had them screaming rabidly.

My point is this...this programme, like all the other American sit-coms, isn't funny. Neither was "Jesse" but that's hardly surprising seeing as there's the same degree of difference between them as there is between New Labour and Old Tory. But the audience were in stitches.

A whole studio full of potential serial killers?

That might explain why vast swathes of the American public are backing George Bush in the slaughter of millions of innocent people.

Then again they might just be ignorant twats.