Sunday

Despite the fact that I’ve got Setanta, I don’t manage to stay awake long enough to catch the Calzaghe fight and thanks to Radio Five Live I now know the result. No point bothering with any of the numerous replays then.

More fuss seems to be being made about Rachel Burden’s tank top than it does about Joe’s impressive unification victory. I check out the Five Live website and it is a fairly hideous garment, perfect for radio.

Sunday morning telly is not what you’d call inspiring. In our kitchen, Something for the Weekend is playing to an audience of one sleeping cat. How can Lovejoy possibly have ended up in telly so tailor-made for the cardie and carpet slippers brigade, I just don’t understand. The girlfriend will normally sit through any old dross but even she has given up the ghost today and opted for Doc Martin DVDs. They actually make for pretty good Sunday morning telly but I’ve got a column to finish. I leave her to it.

On our return from lunch she decides to catch up on last week’s EastEnders, a show I never found that interesting first time around. She goes off to work and I’m left with Star Wars Episode V to watch, or rather fall asleep in front of. This was my favourite of the whole franchise but it loses all its gravitas after the first viewing and now, some twenty-seven years after first seeing it, there’s little left to keep me conscious.

Next comes some flipping between Emmerdale, where Donna and Marlon are having another pointless spat, and Strictly Come Dancing. The bottom two is Dom and John Barnes. The panel love John Barnes inexplicably, and it’s obvious that Dom will be toast. I don’t even bother watching the final decision. I learn later that Dom is not happy with the judges. Perhaps they could do a Beat the Burglar special so that he could get his own back.

Over on Corrie, Sarah has degenerated into the Incredible Sulk. Sinbad breezes back as though he’s never been away and Todd makes a very undramatic departure. It feels very much like a marking time episode, even a filler. We fear we’ll have to endure weeks of John embarrassingly doing his flies up as he almost gets caught in compromising positions. Lord save us.

I forgo the delights of the latest Stephen Poliakoff for a trip to the pub. I may be missing a treat but that’s what the Sky Plus is for.

I arrive home still in need of some telly entertainment before turning in for the night. I give Britain’s Love Story a try but I’m bored within minutes. More 4 is repeating the tacky quiz with which Channel Four chose to “celebrate” its silver anniversary. Jeremy Isaacs would probably be spinning in his grave if he were dead. I bet he’s not a happy bunny.

I remember that I’ve got last night’s Casualty on the Sky+. It proves to be a bit of a treat. The show feels far less soapy these days and seems to have got back to the core values that made it such a hit in the first place. It’s hardly original and moves at a fairly slow pace but there's plenty of action and blood and humour and Josh gets a happy ending so there’s much to be thankful for.

Monday

The alarm goes at six and I spend an hour hitting the snooze button but talk about Citibank in trouble has permeated my sleep and I end up dreaming about it. I’m perplexed as to why until I click the tube on and Declan is there to explain everything. They had him in shorts last week. I thank my lucky stars that he’s more suitably attired. It's hard to keep your corn flakes down when Declan's exercising. He's no Green Goddess.

Over on GMTV, Richard Arnold is celebrating Kate's Come Dancing survival. Fiona admits she didn’t watch it. So much for solidarity and sisterhood. I shouldn't wonder if when Dame Fiona was on it, there was a three line whip on GMTV underlings to watch under pain of death. Kate may mot be very good but she's a hundred times better than Fiona was.

It’s worth catching five minutes of GMTV in the morning because it’s a nice reminder that if you had to spend all day in front of the box, most of what’s on offer is of this standard. Makes you feel glad to be going to work.

Lunchtime.

It’s really infuriating trying to watch Sky Sports News with the sound off but you can pretty much read about most things in ten minutes. It’s at its most annoying when they put a “Just In” caption over some footage but no explanatory text to say what’s just in. Grr. It turns out that Chris Hutchings has been given the Spanish Archer from Wigan.

Shame.

Monday evening arrives and the ritual of a hour and a half of Corrie and Enders. I occasionally flick to Setanta to get an update on the live footy to be met by a grunt of disapproval from my significant other who is listening to the plot while running down the battery on my PSP playing Sonic The Flaming Hedgehog.

Highlight of the soaps turns out to be Sarah's weeding dress going up in flames as it adorns a Guy but it’s really not as funny as it should be.

The creepy faction of the Slater clan continues to make my flesh creep.

Soon though it’s time for the last Doc Martin, and what a strangely flat episode it turns out to be. They really never made enough out of ex-con Mick and he fails to even appear in the finale. Nothing seems quite right here; it’s all out of kilter and even a nice cameo from David Bamber as the replacement vicar can’t quite lift things.

Finally the awaited hour comes around and Prison Break is back on our screens. This third series seems to improve with every episode and there’s plenty to savour here as Michael decides to create an EMP using a microwave – as you do - while T Bag manages to spend time in a closet with a prostitute without killing her or even doing anything else untoward. It’s gripping stuff and I’m massively glad its back, but the fear must be that the dreaded strike means we've not got many episodes left. The missus will have us watching "freak of the week" type shows on Five Life if it disappears. A shiver runs down my spine.

Tuesday

I manage to sleep through breakfast telly, which is quite possibly a blessing in disguise. First exposure to any telly is at lunchtime where the presenters of Sky Sports News are waving a pair of Superman pants about. Who says that telly is dumbing down. There is an almost legitimate reason for this strange behaviour but frankly it's not that interesting.

Tuesday evening and the Slater storyline is getting creepier and creepier. Sean's mum seems to be in a bit of a state. Not surprising as she'd caught that deadly virus in Spooks a couple of weeks ago.

Talking of things medical, it's all going off on Holby City. It turns out that Nurse Jesus of Nazareth has a coke habit while one of the sisters is stashing alcohol in her shampoo bottles. Heaven knows what that must be doing to her follicles but it's certainly having a detrimental effect on the patients. She manages to cause the death of one of them within seconds of the start of the show.

The harpist turns out to be a cuckoo in the nest and by the time the alcoholic nurse decides to blackmail a consultant over pig organs, I decide it's high time to go the pub.

At the pub, the Champions League is full swing. It's obvious that Liverpool is several goals to the good but because the pub telly's screen ratio is not set correctly we can't actually see the score. No matter though, because it's quiz night. It doesn't do too much for the team's popularity if you win too often so I hope we lose, but the quiz is littered with telly trivia questions and we win by a clear five points. Oops.

I return at midnight and hit the Sky+ to catch up on a bit of Ramsay. I've got two episodes of Spooks unwatched but decide to save them until I'm more alert. Gordon is in Paris where the establishment he is trying to help seems more like a French farce than a restaurant. It's patently obvious that the “business” is nothing but a plaything and that it will all end in tears is a given from the off. Not a great episode.

Wednesday

Wednesday evening is one where I can’t settle on anything, constantly flicking between Champions League matches, the Arsenal one being amazingly dull. Rangers probably wish that their Barcelona game was as boring and they do their best to make it so.

I drift on to Trinny and Susannah. Trinny has been given a pair of prosthetic breasts, which isn’t as riveting as it sounds. Not to be outdone, Susannah is having her rather more substantial chest weighed using the method of water displacement. If they taught us about water displacement using breasts when I was a teenager I just might have taken more notice during those physics classes.

Ladies, T&S seem to think your bras don't fit properly. They tackle an entire community to get them into shape. Is this what they mean by uplifting telly? Insert your own gag here.

Sadly, Happy Birthday BAFTA turns out to be as bad as it sounds, with even the wonderful Miss Piggy failing to shine. Weirdly, she has to play a stilted scene with Sharon Osbourne and at times it's easy to forget which one's the Muppet.

The cast of Upstairs Downstairs makes a bewildering appearance. It looks like they literally had to dig some of them up. Lesley Anne Down doesn’t look particularly decrepit but her face doesn’t look particular mobile either. We hold a brief Who Can Mime Better than Celine Dion competition at Hogan Towers. The answer appears to that everyone can. Ho hum.

Thursday

A telly free day. Everyone should have one, it's great.

Except there's loads of good stuff on a Thursday. I watch it on Friday.

Friday

The first of my catch up viewing shows is Journeyman. I'm not sure what I'm expecting, perhaps something like Quantum Leap or Life on Mars. This show probably owes a debt to both of those but it has it's own energy.

What I wasn't expecting was Kevin McKidd's attempt at an American accent. It may take me several episodes to adjust to that, but the concept was quite good even if the pilot seemed to plod along at a leisurely pace. There's certainly enough intrigue to keep me coming back for more.

The Street should be gripping kitchen sink drama but the opener was less believable than a show about time travel.

It wasn't helped that the barmy storyline heavily featured Bronagh Gallacher – recently featured in the highly surreal The Peter Serafinowicz Show. I kept expecting Peter to turn up.

To tug at the emotional heartstrings the way this tries to do can only be effective if you believe in what you're watching. I didn't.

I still have Waterloo Road to catch up on but I'm really not in the mood.

Instead I go with the rerun of the Doc Martin Christmas Special, but I remember it all too vividly from its first showing and this, coupled with my disappointment of the season finale, leaves me feeling a tad disappointed.

I forgo the delights of Jonathan Ross and Jimmy Carr wallowing in self indulgence for the Funland DVDs I picked up earlier in the day. Now there was a piece of quality telly.

Saturday

Events conspire to keep me away from the box on Saturday morning. This wouldn't bother me in the slightest usually but I confess that I developed a bit of a liking for TMi. Give me Sam and Mark over Dick and Dom any day. The former Pop Idol hopefuls certainly have a likeability about them. Watch out Ant and Dec.

It's Bond in the afternoon and the classic You Only Live Twice. There's an extensive scene in the movie where they try to make Sean Connery Japanese, yet at the end of it he just looks like, well, Sean Connery.

With the evening comes The X Factor and confident predictions at Hogan Towers that Andy will be out.

We feel this is exactly born out by the performances and fail to see why Beverley ended up in the bottom two. Same Difference's effort is bizarre, messy and lame and our favourite Niki seems to going backwards with Alisha gets better every week.

We actually like Leon this week who seemed far more comfortable in the spotlight. We just wish he'd lose the Freddie Garrity leg movements.

Was Shayne Ward miming? We weren't sure. We were totally sure someone else was that evening...

Suddenly it was time for real car crash television - The Kylie Show.

Initially it seemed that Kylie's eyebrows would completely dominate the show. It wasn't easily to tell who had drawn them on her, make up artist or a three year old with a thick wax crayon, but they were certainly overly dominant.

To be fair, the staging of the songs was OK if a little dated. I was put in mind of some of Stanley Baxter's spectaculars, not least because some of the costumes were more befitting of a drag queen than a pop diva.

It was the absolutely appalling attempts at punctuating the show with the comedy that made the whole thing seem lame and frankly a bit desperate. The skit with Jason Donovan was painfully unfunny and things just went downhill from there. It may well have set Mat Horne's career back years.

By the time Danni and Simon Cowell turned for a toe-curlingly embarrassing sketch, we were only still watching because we couldn't believe it was that bad.

Quite possibly the worst piece of Light Entertainment perpetrated this century.

I wonder if I'll upset Kylie's multitude of fans with my thoughts and set my email to filter out anything featuring the word "Kylie".

Now where did I put that poppy?