At last, a modicum of sense from the pubescent noodleheads who run the television schedules. I wonder if their ranks have been infiltrated by a Dobsonist? Apparently, there is a forthcoming series called Strictly Pamphleteering, in which contestants will write pamphlets and declaim them on live television. Week by week, the panel of judges and the public will vote out the most hopeless would-be pamphleteer, until at the end of the series, the winner is crowned Strictly Pamphleteering Pamphleteer Of The Year.

No details have yet emerged of who will be on the judging panel, though names such as Dale Winton, Yoko Ono, V S Naipaul and Leo Sayer have been touted. The panel will also decide on each week’s pamphlet topic, with subjects ranging from ospreys to goat husbandry to the astronomical innovations of Tycho Brahe. We can be sure that the eventual winner will have shown a splendid ability to declaim mighty pamphleteering prose about pretty much anything under the sun. Could this show bring us a 21^st century Dobson? I live in hope.