March 30. The fight of the week wasn’t Keno v. Kaovichit or even Bloor v. Elliott ‘Goodnight’ Wright on Towie. It was Nigel ‘Crazy Frog’ Farage v. Nick ‘The Android’ Clegg on the LBC Leaders’ Debate. The hour-long catch weight bout, shown in full on Sky News, was a two-man Question Time with Nick Ferrari refereeing and the audience firing loaded questions. There was no purse, but both men had everything to play for. Clegg’s Lib Dems are on the ropes, staring electoral wipe-out in the face; UKIP’s Farage was having his shot at the big time. The leader of a party with no MPs was getting in the ring with the Deputy Prime Minister. It was the political equivalent of Rocky, except Apollo Creed (Cameron) had bottled it and sent his sparring partner instead.

Clegg is an old-hand at these things, having out-boxed Gordon Brown and Cameron in 2010. At times, his experience showed. He stuck to stats (some iffy), and landed big blows by questioning Farage’s figures and his scare tactic immigration claims. Nige soaked up the punishment and counter-punched, bringing up Clegg’s broken referendum promise – Nick said we should have read the “small print”, making him sound like a slippery insurance salesman. Clegg’s own scare tactic was to assert without a shred of evidence that three million jobs depended on Britain staying in the EU. If Farage courted controversy over Ukraine, Clegg seemed economically naïve.

By the bell, both men were still standing. Farage looked sweaty, but had clearly been arguing from the heart. Clegg stayed calm - androids don’t perspire – and gained momentum as the debate went on. But his peculiar body language made him appear as stiff as a showroom dummy. He also drank water the way Farage knocks back pints at last orders, prompting opponents to note that his bladder must be significantly stronger than his backbone. It went to points, and the judges – viewers polled by YouGov - gave it to Farage 57 to 36. The underdog had truly arrived. How long can Miliband’s glass jaw stay untested?

*THAT big debate in a nutshell - Farage: close the borders, open the pubs. Clegg: make this a Greater Britain by, umm, giving up border controls, sovereignty, economic powers etc, etc.

SNOBBERY underpinned Martin Amis’s England, a rambling hotchpotch of class prejudice, ignorance and clichés. Amis claims to love old Albion but isn’t too keen on the lower orders. Apparently, we’re a bunch of hopeless lager louts drinking to “forget our glorious past.” He’s clearly forgotten that his own father Kingsley was one of the most famous piss-heads of the 20th century, along with Churchill and Woy Jenkins. Maybe drunks are nobler if they’re necking Grand Marnier rather than beer. Amis worked through cliffs, cricket and Morris dancers. He even threw in spanking – something we never see in soaps, although you suspect Norris Cole would appreciate it. He managed to miss science, invention, manufacturing, art, architecture, pop music and Parliamentary democracy. The football hooliganism he detests peaked in the 80s, much like his writing.

*DO the English drink more now? The 18th Century had Gin Lane, the 19th threw up the horrified Temperance Movement. Nothing much has changed.

CORRIE love rat Peter Barlow has got away with so much, the thought must have occurred to him: how much Cabernet would Carla have to sink before he could talk her into a threesome with Tina? (Ask Rita!) Crazy, yes, but still not quite as daft as Tina hiding under that restaurant table, a scene which inspired a million base male viewers to chortle: “While you’re down there... ” Peter is used to having two women on the go, of course. All the time he was off the wagon, he was seeing double...

*FACT: Tina is now so orange that kissing her actually counts as one of your five a day (and I cleaned that up).

*LES Dennis made his Street debut as robber Michael Rodwell breaking into Chateau Platt. He got away but will be severely punished – they’re making him Gail’s boyfriend. And if he can Rodwell after that...

HOT on TV: Annet Mahendru, The Americans... Great Escape Day (C5)... Klondike (Discovery)... True Detective (SkyAt)... Believe (Watch)

ROT on TV: Louis Theroux – gone to the dogs... Martin Amis’s England – no wonder he lives in Brooklyn... Joanna Meets Will.i.am – nice for her, but why involve us?

WHAT will Gregg Wallace get his chops around next – a pie, a tart, another much younger woman? Masterchef has all the big questions. Like how does the cake-guzzling greengrocer stay so thin? Why does contestant Holly bleat like a lamb and wobble like a puppet? Could Robert be Alec Gilroy’s love child? And what was that funny black mark in Sumera’s eye all about?

*ONE great joy of The Americans is the ropy disguises. It’s like a KGB version of Beadle’s About. I’d love to see ’em get mixed up and for Elizabeth to go on a mission in Phillip’s fake moustache.

*SECRETS Of The Vatican revealed that the Catholic church is rotten with corruption, cover-ups and child abuse – no surprises there. How about some less familiar Vatican secrets, C4? Like: 3) Pope watches Rev just to laugh at the size of Anglican congregations. 2) That gag about the two Nuns in the bath? It actually happened. 1) Every Friday in the Sistine Chapel it’s beer and bingo night!

*WHO was the stiff in Nick Cotton’s coffin? It’s Walford’s second biggest mystery of week (the biggest being Charlie’s accent). The big manly arm that fell out brought Fat Pat to mind. But my money is on the soap’s continuity editor; he’s been gaga for donkey’s years.

*OTHER E20 mysteries: did Janine just forget her daughter Scarlett? Did the writers? And why are they trying to make Nasty Nick younger? He was born in ’54, not ’59.

*CONSCIOUS uncoupling is all the rage. For unconscious coupling see Gem and Arg on Towie.

*WOMEN become invisible at 51, says a survey. So explain Janet Street-Porter.

Small Joys of TV: The Greatest Knight. Carla and Michelle’s funeral clobber on Corrie, they looked like Goth hookers. Louis Theroux’s Zen dog-trainer, and the stroppy LA dog-owner telling him “Take your bitch ass back to London, n*gga”. Tsk, we don’t want the gangly creep.

Random Irritations: Masterchef over-load: too many chefs spoil the telly. Wandering accents on Shetland. Paxman giving Paul Flowers an easy ride on Newsnight. TV news, or anyone, taking Met Office predictions seriously.

SEPARATED at birth: Berna on Missing and Julie Burchill, one searching for her sister, the other for her career...

March 23. Spitting Image was so vicious it made Mock The Week seem like In The Night Garden. The ITV show, ramblingly celebrated by Arena, rained latex hell on politicians of all parties, changing the way viewers saw them. Thatcher was a cross-dressing tyrant, Kinnock a slippery windbag, while Liberal leader David Steel was a pathetic pipsqueak staring up adoringly at David Owen. His public image never recovered.

Tebbit aside, the Cabinet were always portrayed as spineless wets, as worthless as a referendum guarantee from David Cameron. In one classic sketch a waitress taking Maggie’s dinner order asked: “What about the vegetables?” “They’ll have the same as me,” the PM replied. The show didn’t just hate the status quo, though. Like all true satire it was powered by outrage and a sense of justice.

Some say modern politicians are too samey for this formula to work today. Really? We’ve got William Vague posturing on Crimea, Cameron tweeting selfies, dithering Ed Miliband, blundering Ed Balls... with frog-faced Nigel Farage nipping at their heels. Boris, Michael Gove (who looks like ventriloquist’s doll Archie Andrews brought to life) and Alex ‘Braveheart’ Salmond are all crying out to be sent up.

I can see Katie Hopkins already – big gob, rubber brain, twisted features... and as for her puppet...

Barely a day goes by without some new absurdity. The Bercows are a sitcom on their own, Mandelson would be perfect as a whispering serpent in the garden of deceit and self-interest... Granted Nick Clegg is pretty bland but he is European Union middle management and they’re all like that. Imagine what Spitting Image would have made of Merkel, Rompuy and Barroso; not to mention Putin, Obama and talking tree John Kerry. Imagine the fun they’d have had with Reverend Flowers.

Unlike most modern comedians, satirists believe in something more than tax dodging and a lucrative career on TV panel shows. Their job is to puncture the pompous and powerful. You could argue that twitter and YouTube fill the gap. But Spitting Image hit harder, felt sharper and reached millions. Trouble is TV bosses, particularly at the BBC, only employ comics who share their prejudices. It’s been years since clapped-out Have I Got News For You filled politicians with dread.

BILLIE Porter visited a seedy sex club in Prague where punters can eat grub off of a naked woman. This raises all sorts of issues, for starters where do you leave the tip? Ordering pie and mash must cause confusion. “You want liquor? 30 Euros!” It’s even more if you want to chew her grits. Or lay the table. But on the plus side, the washing up does itself... The show was called Prostitution: What’s The Harm? (Cos if it had been called ‘What’s The Damage?’ some wag would’ve quipped £80 an hour.) I hear they did try it with naked blokes, but that caused problems... there was the unfortunate sausage incident... the meat and two veg were undercooked... and one customer complained about the knob of butter. Billie didn’t ask if the women came in different sizes. If you were hungry a light snack Lucy Beale would be no use at all, you’d want the full Nessa Jenkins. Back in Britain, she met ex-madam Becky who wants brothels legalised to drive out crooks, making the world’s oldest trade safer, healthier and taxable. Or in language George Osborne can understand: Ker-ching!

ON EastEnders, Aussie Nicole flew to London with a deal for Alfie: she’d write off the £15,000 he owes her if he slept with her. Once. Really? £15K for a shag? With Alfie, a middle-aged man with two shirts to his name... This storyline seems even dafter than Alfie at Southend airport. But let’s not be too hasty, perhaps the writers know a greater truth. Perhaps Oz is full of well-off attractive Sheilas with low standards and bad eye-sight bored with poor quality locals like Shane Warne and Hugh Jackman. And if that is the case I’m available for the considerably lower price of two pints of lager and a packet of three. Nicole eventually settled for Alfie’s burger van, she’s happily defrosting the jumbo sausages in a unique Down Under way.

HOT on TV: Line Of Duty finale... Turks & Caicos... Reece Shearsmith (The Widower)... Christina Marie (The Voice)...

ROT on TV: Educating Joey Essex - like trying to bottle sunlight... Max (The Voice) – flatter than a filleted flounder... W1A – all the bite of a toothless Care bear.

THE moral of The Widower is clear: never open a Scotsman’s bills. Newly married Claire complains about husband Malcolm’s spending, and he responds by lacing her tea with Tamazepam (memo to Mary Beard: how about that for Oh Do Shut Up Dear?) An extreme over-reaction, even for a control freak, but based on a true story. Reece Shearsmith is suitably creepy as the kilted killer with a passion for pricy antique clocks. No cash in his attic, just corpses.

*IN Africa, Joey Essex was amazed to see a male beetle push his female around on a massive ball of crap. Bless, it was just like watching Lockie and Danni on Towie.

*WHAT next for globe-trotting Joey? Rio Thicko... Pillock Of The Caribbean... Or how about a walking tour of Crimea wearing an ‘I Love Brussels’ t-shirt?

*MARIA’S world fell apart when she found Marcus enjoying “one last bash” with the predatory Todd. The low rumbling sound heard in the background was Albert Tatlock spinning in his grave.

*FOOTBALL managers telling jokes? Bah, where was Arsene Wenger with his great comedy catchphrase “I never saw it”?

*DUNNO about telling jokes, but Gareth Southgate knew how to sign ’em. Anyone remember Afonso Alves? And if so, why?

Small Joys of TV: Beckham in Peckham. Vinnie Jones, The Musketeers. Tom Jones’s floral jacket, he looked like a homage to Max Miller. Tony Parsons – The Art of Boxing. The relief on finding that TB: Return Of The Plague wasn’t about Tony Blair, Ted Bundy or worse Tracey Bloody Barlow.

Random Irritations: pointless bookings on 8 Out Of Ten Cats – a conveyor belt of lightweights. Arena’s confused and overly pretentious Spitting Image doc. Kylie talking about her “journey” on The Voice – you’re spinning round in a chair, love!

SEPARATED at birth: jailed animal rights fanatic Debbie Vincent and Ed Byrne – one a genuine hot-head... the other only sounds like one...

CELEB maths: Vladimir Putin + Merida from Brave = Dave Mustaine from Megadeath.

March 16. Michael McIntyre is loud, jolly and bubblier than Barbara Windsor’s bath tub, so it’s easy to see why some people find him as irritating as thrush. And just as easy to see why he packs out arenas. But why would the BBC pay him a reported £500,000 of our money to host a six week chat-show? That’s more than £80K a show for a job he can’t do.

Chat-show hosts need certain easily identified qualities including the ability to listen to what someone else is saying. McIntyre had no time for that. His guests were just props for pre-planned material. He talked over Wogan, laughed at his own jokes, and rushed through conversations as if he had somewhere better to be. You could have timed an egg with his Lily Allen chat.

True Michael got laughs with his familiar lookalikes, Kim Jong un and Samir Nasri, but the business with a mobile phone felt like something Graham Norton had done years ago. An unwise comparison to invite because he’s so not Graham Norton. The smart, chatty Irishman brings out the best in people, rather than trampling all over them. McIntyre could have booked a cardboard cut-out of Alan Sugar, or Meg Ryan, for all the interest he had in actually getting a conversation going. Giving him a chat-show is like asking an orang-utan to bake cakes. It’s mildly diverting but as much use as Joey Essex on Countdown.

TV bosses seem to think that anyone can do a chat-show. This deluded belief has produced more turkeys than Kelly Bronze. Davina, touted as the new Parky, had her show axed after one dismal series, Antony Cotton took two weeks to lose half his audience and OMG with Peaches Geldof was one of the worst TV shows ever made. And that’s another problem. We really only remember chat-shows when things go wrong or when the hosts lose control. Think of Parky wrestling Rod Hull’s Emu, Grace Jones slapping Russell Harty or Des O’Connor trying to cope with an unhinged Freddie Starr. There’s no danger of that with McIntyre, because he never relinquishes command, every moment is planned, every laugh anticipated. The result is watchable, but not memorable. Ultimately bland.

*WHY can’t we have topical talk shows every night like the Yanks do? Try out different hosts: one week Frank Skinner, the next Alexei Sayle in a really bad mood. Someone will click.

A NEW menace was spotted on EDL Girls: Don’t Call Me Racist, a Kingsmill loaf with the word ‘Halal’ on it. It was a strange thing to get het up about. It just means that Muslims can eat it, not that the bread had been ritually slaughtered. (I prefer my cobs pre-stunned). Amanda thought going on an EDL demo was “romantic.” Really? Most experts agree that it’s not a patch on a dog fight... Or for that real Barbara Cartland style chemistry, a bare-knuckle traveller bout. Not saying she’s dim, but Amanda thinks a power vacuum is a type of Hoover. She would have joined the Conservatives but EDL was easier to spell. Of course shows like this set out to make the subjects look daft, deluded or dodgy. If BBC3 spent months filming anti-fracking protesters, Marxist dinner parties or Lib-Dem quiz nights they’d also uncover spectacular loons. They never do though, do they? Odd that.

PETER Barlow gets two women pregnant this month! Forget fertility supplements, fellas, if you want kids just spend twenty years smashed out of your skull on Smirnoff. Condoms in Corrie seem as forgotten as Steve’s college course. Maybe that’s why Liz announced “I’m taking Tony in the back.” The minx! What fresh sexual twist will the soaps delight us with next? We’ve already seen brother-on-sister, girl on girl, man on beast (Heather Trott), and with Peter and Tina middle-aged mess on nubile goddess. But no swingers. That’s just off camera.

*AS a small act of revenge, Owen and Gary should get the other builders to strike up a chorus of that old Walker Brothers’ song: You’ve Lost Your Hairline, Phelan...

HOT on TV: Line Of Duty... The Americans... The Blacklist... Famous, Rich & Hungry... Aisling Bea.

ROT on TV: The Musketeers – there are better written food labels... Ray Quinn skating topless, make it legless and I’d be interested.

THE first rule of TOWIE is no-one wants to be mugged off. James Lock cheated on Danielle, mugging her off, so he had to jog on. “I’m not a mug,” she insisted, in case we missed the point. Some mystery bint had been texting Bobby claiming she’d shagged cocky Lockie in Brighton; this made him “a cheating mug.” Egged on by the poisonous Gemma, Bobby blabbed. Lockie denied it, but added that he hadn’t been serious about Danni back then. Uh-oh. The girl was so shocked her roots turned black. Furious, Danni drenched him with her cocktail. Lockie was lucky she wasn’t drinking a flaming sambuca; and luckier she didn’t try and wring his neck. She’s got hands like a stevedore. He wooed her back, called Bobby “son” (“’E son-ed me off!”) and got soaked again by Gemma, “a two-faced slag”. Previously, Ferne had mugged off Charlie by bedding Frank the Plank; both blokes branded each other, you guessed it, “a mug.” This show has more mugs than a transport caff. But the ‘drama’ remains as convincingly authentic as Chloe’s jugs.

*FRAN has really fallen for nice-guy Diags. It’s fair to say he’s made her whole week.

*I LIKE to watch The Voice with the back of my chair pointing towards the screen, and my feet making swiftly towards my local. The show is more stretched than the Octomum’s privates. It’s also fundamentally flawed. Your chances of getting through plummet as the judges fill up their teams (and it’s the same with the ‘saves’). It can’t even produce stars. Pointless.

*MORE shocks on Holiday Hit Squad. Honestly, you spend thirty bob on a family break and end up in a glorified knackers’ yard. Who’d have thought it?

*SUE Perkins and Bruno Tonioli on Room 101? Irony just died.

*RE You Saw Them Here First: We saw it all first on The Way They Were.

Small Joys of TV: Insane Fight Club. Breaking Magic. Ventriloquist Steve Hewlett. Theo Paphitis. Alex Jones flashing; the rest of the show was also pants. Next? Mary Berry’s cami-knickers...

Random Irritations: X Factor hype. Cheryl Cole’s pointless return. The stark contrast between the funky drama of the Homes Under The Hammer theme tune and the show’s actual content.

SEPARATED at birth: poisoner Luca Sastini on The Musketeers and Eric Cantona, both knew how to deliver a vicious kick...

March 9. Ellen DeGeneres made a decent fist of hosting the Oscars. She mocked the elaborate tenting outside the Dolby Theatre, saying: “It’s been a tough couple of days for us. There’s been rain. We’re fine. Thank you for your prayers.” Ellen claimed that the frighteningly bra-less Liza Minnelli was actually “One of the most amazing Liza Minnelli impersonators I’ve seen in my life. Good job, sir.” And praised Jonah Hill for appearing starkers in The Wolf Of Wall Street and “showing us something I’ve not seen for a very long time.” She even had pizza delivered. Shame DiCaprio turned it down, it was the only thing he got offered all night.

Okay, Ellen’s Somalia/sommelier gag flew over more heads than the Red Arrows, but she was a safe pair of hands. And that obviously set-up selfie will be all anyone remembers of the 86th Academy Awards... except maybe the size of Robin Roberts’s bonce... What a noggin! You’ll see smaller heads on Disneyworld characters.

As usual the Oscars delivered stars, glitz, glamour, and faces as stretched as the waiting limos. It wasn’t an exciting night. There was no danger, risks, nor monumental berks – although Jared Leto tried. The speeches were as dull as the England/Denmark game. Cate Blanchett did raise a few smiles telling Sandra Bullock that she could watch her performance in Gravity “till the end of time... and I sort of felt like I had.” I felt like that watching the ceremony.

The nearest we got to controversy was when John Travolta called Idina Menzel “Adele Dazeem.” Shame he didn’t introduce Lupita Nyong’o. Later he condemned President Putin for invading IKEA.

Jennifer Lawrence (or as Travolta probably calls her General Lauriston) tripped up yet again, making her a contender for Best Supporting Actress and Worst Performing Stuntwoman. So if Miranda ever needs a stand-in... Hey Jen, maybe try a trouser suit next time?

*THE best-ever Oscars hosts: 1) Chris Rock 2) Billy Crystal 3) Steve Martin. The worst? James Franco, James Franco, James Franco.

NEWLY-wed Peter Barlow has got the energy of a hundred milkmen, and the sex-drive to match. He bedded Carla, then Tina, and then went back to Carla for another go... Not bad for a middle-aged chain-smoking alcoholic. I bet the lucky bastard eats sugar too. It’s a wonder he doesn’t make a play for Eva, to notch up the ‘hottest women in Weatherfield’ set. He must be on Viagra, surely? (Lord knows what are the writers were on when they came up with this Phelan storyline). Peter’s plans to slip away for a crafty bunk-up with Tina were scuppered when the hotel rang to say his room had been upgraded - like hotels never do – and Carla answered his phone. She dumbly assumed it was a romantic surprise for her. But then a woman’s suspicions must be deadened when she’s knocking back red wine by the goldfish bowl. Tina was fuming. She felt that he was treating her like the other woman. Newsflash: you are the other woman, you dozy bint. Soap infidelity is always entertaining... until someone gets their heart broken. And then of course it’s bloody hilarious.

REGAN and her rack were back on First Dates, impressing Jon with her brains and subtle banter. “What the f*ck’s a coq au vin?” she squawked. How we laughed. Shame she couldn’t trade places with poor love-starved Zizi on Strippers, Regan might feel more at home on a pole. Elsewhere charmless big-head Mostafa told date Cara: “You’re quite good-looking. I’d give you a four or five out of ten.” “What’s a ten?” she asked. “You’re looking at one,” he replied. Git. The only couple to hit it off were Jackie, 61, who wanted “to have sex before I die.” The way she clicked with Colin she could easily have managed it before dessert. I felt for Corinne, made to eat oysters by date Zane. “What if it like comes in my mouth?” she asked. We all know how Mostafa would have answered that.

HOT on TV: 37 Days... Brian Conley’s Timeline (Challenge)... Greg Kinnear, Rake (Universal)... Zizi (Strippers)... The Blacklist (Sky Living).

ROT on TV: Kristin Cavallari on E!’s On The Red Carpet – like booking a performing seal to comment on Match Of The Day... Silk – jilt... Jonathan Creek – starting to creak... Man Up – belt up!

*ODD that the Yanks have no trouble finding funny women: Chelsea Handler, Joan Rivers, Whitney Cummins, Ellen... They don’t need quotas. So how-come the Beeb find so few? Could it be they’re just not looking in the right places?

*WHITNEY couldn’t be anything but a comedienne with a name like that. How many times at school did she hear “Is that Whitney Cummins?” “No she’s just breathing heavily... ”

*EVERYONE is so het-up on EastEnders they haven’t noticed Roxy has come back from Ibiza with a different kid. Is it one Ronnie stole earlier?

*I WAS tempted to ring the soap’s phone-line at the end. “Yes I’ve been affected by your storyline. I manufacture chicken nuggets. You goons have ruined my business!”

*THEY had alpacas on Dragons’ Den: dumb, wide-eyed creatures waiting to be fleeced... just like all the other mugs.

*THE wages on Strippers are dire. These women need to unionise. Come on girls, one out, both out.

*AN odd confession from Mary Berry this week: “I’m getting decidedly sticky,” she said. “There’s a lot of finger licking.” Steady on, old girl.

*YOU know what I never knew about Britain? That we have historians as hot as Suzannah Liscomb...

Small Joys of TV: Best Actress Oscar winner Cate Blanchett telling Julia Roberts to “hash-tag suck it.” Samantha Bond (Outnumbered). Toni Collette’s ears – so big she could hear sign language.

Random Irritations: Jared Leto’s ludicrous Oscars speech. The Voice’s ridiculous battle rounds. Question Time loading the audience in Barking – they’re the only barking ones if they thought we wouldn’t notice. Kat Moon: Call the Mad Wife. EastEnders: one downer after another. “It’s not good news,” said Carol’s doc. Of course it’s not. It’s Walford!

THEY’RE re-running old Celebrity Squares on Challenge. I did four in the 90s, and met Dale Winton for the first time on one of them. Unfortunately it was the same day I’d branded his series the worst on daytime TV... We did become close friends though, which reminds me: Kristen Bell hasn’t half done some crap lately...

SEPARATED at birth: Sally Barker’s son Dylan on The Voice and Benny Hawkins from Crossroads.

March 2. The women on Strippers wanted to open up about their lives, hopes and dreams. But if you pressed mute and put ZZ Top on in the background, it still did the trick.

The C4 show focused on three bright girls barely working for cash in Glasgow’s Diamond Dolls emporium. There was Kim, a former champion gymnast, drama graduate Danielle and Laefena, a qualified nurse from Estonia. Shelley, their “house mother”, was the real star, though. Asked if she exploited young women, she snapped “Away and open your eyes – the only ones being exploited here are the ones with the money.”

Too true. Most blokes leave clubs like this drunk, skint and frustrated. Of course the dancers do get screwed, but only financially. They don’t get paid a penny for their pole work, just the private dances. Some of these girls are so poor they still have their original breasts. Most have tattoos too, presumably so if the customers get bored they’ll have something to read.

Widower Colin loved the place so much he came six nights a week, bestowing gifts – largely Maltesers. He kept his Chunky to himself. Shelley took no prisoners, promising to “break every finger” of any groping customer. It was different in Greece though, Laefena confided. Touching was allowed there – “only of breasts”, and she saw a girl “making blow job.” You didn’t get that on Blue Peter.

Kim was stunning. She’d rebelled against her dad’s Olympic dream in her teens although her athletic performances still involved stag leaps and, ahem, pole vaulting. Danielle, 20 didn’t want her parents to know what she did for a living – so good call talking to the cameras. By the end, all three women had moved on. Kim got a job in a bank (not a sperm one); apt as she’d already inspired many a ‘Barclay’s.’ And Danielle confessed to her horrified mother and then quit immediately.

Laefena, who is working around Europe to pay off her college debts, warned that lap-dancing for too long can change your personality, but isn’t that true of traffic wardens too? Clubs like Diamond Dolls keep busy, though. So ladies if your fella rolls home reeking of cheap perfume, as amorous as a 70s sitcom milkman with body glitter all over his flies you’ll know exactly where he’s been...

THEY were talking about Kim’s commitment to stripping when the voice-over woman claimed, “The cracks are starting to show.” That’ll cost extra.

*SOME women would worry if their bloke had erotic dances from Kim, but that’s daft. If he could pull a bird like her why would he be with you?

THE week’s big TV row was about World War One, and involved actual historians. No-one thought to consult White Dee or Katie Hopkins. Britain had to fight, insisted Max Hastings, because Kaiser Bill’s army was brutal, slaughtering 6,500 civilians in the first week of the war alone. And a Hun-run continent would have been on collision course with the British Empire. Making the opposite case, Niall Ferguson argued that we’ve ended up with Europe dominated by the German economy anyway, so the terrible sacrifice was in vain. He argued that by entering the conflict we prolonged it, turning it into a global conflict that paved the way for Hitler and Stalin, and leaving ourselves broke, knackered and demoralized. No Great War would have meant no Russian Revolution and no Third Reich. We’d have been spared two psychopathic hells. Will we ever have the same debate about World War II? We certainly need one about the doomed campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

*MEMO to documentary makers: 2015 sees the 200th anniversary of Waterloo and the 600th anniversary of Agincourt... A good time to cheese off the French, mes amis.

FLAPPY bird Ferne had a stand-up row with Charlie on Towie. She couldn’t sit down – she’d lied her arse off. Ferne got off with new boy Frank Major while they were still together. She initially denied it, before owning up to a “slight over-lap” – which made it sound like she’d been thirty seconds away from a three-some. Charlie, already a regular ray of hail stones, was devastated. Frank resembles posh comic Miles Jupp but is probably funnier. Grace, another new arrival, looks more like a Luisa Zissman waxwork with its cheeks pulled square. Mario and Lewis are already competing for her attentions. Of course they are. These relationships are as convincingly realistic as Chloe’s boobs. Lockie and Danielle have the shelf-life of fresh cream. We’ll never care about them like we did Amy and her vajazzle or Joey and his brain-cell. Elsewhere, Sam has Crohn’s but Gemma is still in the feverish grip of Mad Cow Disease. She also appears to have eaten the rest of the herd. What a girl! Gem is 18-stone of stroppy, wrapped in delusion.

HOT on TV: Line Of Duty... Inside No 9... gymnast Kim (Strippers) – Vulgar Corbitt... Suspects (C5)... Laura Kuenssberg (Newsnight).

ROT on TV: Silk – Sinkhole of the Bailey... The Taste – still tripe... Party Wright Around The World – wrong anywhere in the world... Revenge Of The Egghead – revenge of the viewer, click.

IF Silk were competing with Rumpole Of The Bailey who’d get custody of the audience? Not Silk, it’s nuts. Maxine Peake plays QC Martha Costello, a middle-aged Sally Bercow-style rebel. We know she’s wild; she gets drunk on half a lager, snogs blokes and dances to Joy Division - all at a party in the Royal Court of Justice entrance hall! Unlikely yes, but easier to swallow than what passes for legal practice in the BBC drama.

HOW will EastEnders kill Lucy Beale? 50/1 Burning – on a running machine, her stick-like legs rub together sparking a horrific blaze. 15/1 Drowning - after Phil flushes her head repeatedly down the khazi in an age-old Albert Square ritual. 2/1-on: Vanishing - when the real Lucy, Melissa Suffield, returns and quantum leaps her into a parallel universe.

*THE Dalai Lama says watching telly is a waste of time. But what if we made more shows aimed at him? Craig Ferguson suggests: Two & A Half Monks, Big Buddha, CSI Tibet...

*ANOTHER horrible sub-title howler: Angelina Jolie apparently had an operation called “a double mistake to me.”

*RE Michael Portillo in Bavaria: was that really the first time he’d sampled white sausage?

Small Joys of TV: the nitwits on First Dates. Nanny Pat (Towie). Moone Boy. Ant & Dec’s I’m A Celebrity Get Out Of My Ear. Jonathan Creek spoofing Sherlock’s contrived deductions. Piers Morgan going down like the Belgrano.

Random Irritations: agony aunts. Rigid fake boobs (Towie). 8 Out of 10 Cats on Mondays, Seann Walsh any day. The Voice’s battle rounds. CJ de Mooi – winning gold at the W*nker Olympics.

SEPARATED at birth: Ferne McCann and a young Barbra Streisand; one sang Send In The Clowns, the other dated them.

*AN independent Scotland might not keep EastEnders, we’re told. That’s all of David Bowie’s good work undone, then. “Och, I’m nay bothered about the poond, but losing the Jacksons that’s a real bonus, hen.”

Previously...