I don’t watch tv. I like to acquire my entertainment, I think it is fair to say, by taking my custom to a show, and watch it at my leisure, not as a bum-on-seat to be ‘messaged’ at by advertisers. As a result, I have quite a narrow list of things I watch, although I have been working my way through the ‘1001 films you must see before you die’ book and I’ve been enjoying and appreciating work that, let’s face it, Murdoch just wouldn’t give air time to. Perhaps I’ll return to that in another blog, but at the moment I am ‘learning’ film. What else is a boy to do with these hours available to him?

Californication is not for the faint of heart – if you thought you’d like it because it has ‘that bloke from the x-files in it’ then it probably isn’t for you – I am amazed at the irreverence it shows. For an American tv show, anyway – the pandering to the bible belt and the advertising demographic gamut that producers have to run normally means that this kind of innovation gets stifled. Or left to Canada, or the UK.

Look it up, grab the first series wherever you can, and watch some first class writing, and dare I say it, acting. David Duchovny plays a superb and believable character (ok, believable in my dreams) with such swagger and bravado, I wonder if he isn’t wasted on the small screen. Fox Mulder would regard Hank Moody as a phenomena to be investigated as paranormal by his standards in the x files. It is a work of genius and I’ve just learnt that it has been commissioned for a fourth series. That makes me a happy man.