Most of all I love Kristina Rihanoff, John’s partner – what a woman!

I hope she comes back and wins next year.

I love SCD but watch it for the dancing and the improvement, as you say. I totally accept others watch it for vicarious pleasures! I’m not a huge fan of sleb reality TV which is why I like SCD – it’s about learning a real skill (and a hard one at that) rather than just bunging everyone together in a house or jungle and seeing who winds up whom… But I concur that a lot of people now vote to wind up the judges or whatever and that is part of the fun.

Surely, the point of this sort of programme is the spectacle of the dancing, and also the spectacle of someone truly unexpected dancing – like, say, a political correspondent. Watching him dance badly is probably just as entertaining for many people as watching some little poppet from a stage-school pop group dance.

Must confess, have never watched Strictly Come Dancing, Popstars, X-Factor or any of that “Io’m a celebrity, watch me make a fool of myself” television but I think your notion of “entertainment” is too narrow, personally. For you, the dancing and improvement is entertaining, for others it’s the opportunity to cock a snook (as it were) at imagined figures of authority (judges) or take a swipe at someone more beautiful, wealthy and successful at themselves. Or just watching some old duffer trip over his own toes week after week.

I think proclamations of “If it is to survive” might be giving it a little more import than is really merited, don’t you?