I must apologise for my outburst yesterday at the awfulness of American sit-coms. Not because of the aggressive (and somewhat illiterate) e-mails I received from Christina Applegate fans (personally I prefer women to be more than just a collection of terrible jokes, tits and teeth) but because this afternoon I took a late lunch in order to avoid kicking in my television screen, and happened instead upon "Today with Des and Mel".

Quite possibly this is the worst, most archaic, repugnant and fossilised pile of old crap the television has ever served up to accompany my crackers and coffee.

Des O'Conner is a sad, irritating old letch with weird orange skin. And the only outstanding points that Melanie Sykes has to offer are stuffed up her sweater. The whole thing reminded me of some bizarre incest web-site televised in front of a whoop of arthritic baboons. Mix in a smattering of dried-up celebrities and a couple of undiscovered pop groups desperately trying to gain some air-time -- any airtime, even if it means selling their souls to Saga -- and you're confronted with the sort of vacuous television that used to wrap itself around tuxedoed-announcers, adverts with stars separating them and Royal Occasions broadcast in glorious black and white for a brain-dead British public.

Tomorrow I will be returning to Jesse...or Nicke or whatever it was called.

That is, I will be returning to Jesse as soon as the hole in my television with the smoke pouring out of it is mended.

Other news: And the suburbs of Washington today continue to be besieged by a mysterious sniper. The gunman's identity remains a mystery as the bodies mount up and, so far, the only clues that the police have to go on are a tarot card featuring 'Death' and the words 'Dear policemen...I am God' and one camera shy witness. According to the witness' statement the sniper was, "Very ugly with piggy little eyeballs that almost met in the middle of his face. And he looked kind of arrogant and stupid with an annoying sneer. When I approached him he shouted, "I'm just getting some practise in for when we go to Iraq," before lolling away towards his limousine with the gait of an arthritic chimpanzee whistling the Star-Spangled Banner."

The Chunt continues.