I hated semolina at school. There’s just something wrong about the way it moves—it moves even when it’s not moving! This one particular malevolent dinner-lady used to force me to eat every single mouthful; for that reason I switched off Dinnerladies as soon as it came on TV. But then, one day when I was caught off-guard, I found myself enjoying it.

That got me thinking about all those other professions and how they might make fantastic TV shows if only the good media people would give them a chance: Taxidermists for example, or Double-glazed window salesmen, Librarians. We all know that it’s the quiet ones you have to look out for!

Dinnerladies actually really helped me; after I’d watched it something in my brain went click and I could understand what it meant to be a dinner lady. I could see how terrible it would be to face children every day. So I started to watch Dinnerladies more often, and before I knew it I was thinking about something totally new, a thing I had never thought would become important to me–

What about the Dinnermen? In this age of equality, shouldn’t there be Dinnermen too? Can’t a man do it just as well as any woman? OK, so us men are a long way behind culturally—and many of us can barely operate a microwave—but does that mean we should be secluded from being a part of this wonderful profession? Yes, I said wonderful. It’s true, Victoria Wood and her cronies—nice as they are, because I really do enjoy watching them these days—have turned my life around and made Semolina bearable again. Not that I’ll be eating it any time soon, but it’s a start.