Last updated 11:49, Tuesday, 07 October 2008

THERE was a time when autumn marked the launch of TV schedules with big-hitting series as the nights drew in.

Scanning through the TV pages, it’s hard to find something – anything – to keep you riveted to the sofa for five minutes, let alone capture your attention and imagination for eight or 12 weeks.

And I can’t understand how our pubs are struggling so much when the Saturday night schedules force you outside.

The latest brilliant BBC idea is ‘celebrities’ jumping through holes.

Hole In The Wall is hosted by Dale Winton.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, it features people you’ve barely heard of, or vaguely remember from when they might have had their own TV show, dressed in terrifyingly, embarrassingly stretched lycra.

If they don’t fit through a hole in a polystyrene wall the wall pushes them into a swimming pool.

Fantastic or what? The answer is what.

Alan Partridge once suggested monkey tennis.

That’s probably planned in for next year.