I have never written a TV show, but if I had, I guarantee that you and everyone else I have ever met would be well aware of the fact.

Apparently Americans, one of the most self-congratulatory societies on the planet, do not feel the same way. I say this after watching some television on the Paramount Comedy channel over the weekend. Have you ever tried to read the credits at the end of an American show? They fall down the screen faster than Chris Langham’s trousers in PC World (allegedly).

What is the point of having your name in the credits if you are not able to take a screen shot of it and email it to all of the eligible women that you know? If it was me, I would be furious.

Can you imagine having a party at your house, just as the first episode of a show you have been involved in was being screened, and then, just as your moment of glory arrives, you call for silence and the credits begin to roll. And then they whip past, and everyone suddenly casts accusatory glances in your direction, and none of the women will sleep with you. A true nightmare scenario if ever there was one.

I think this is why people like Jay Leno, David Letterman and Michael Parkinson insist in having their names in the title of their shows. There can be no absolutely no doubting the fact that they are in it.

If they were trying to impress ladies in a bar with lines like, “I have interviewed Billy Connolly forty-eight times”, they would not even need to watch an episode of the show to prove it. A copy of the Radio Times and a highlighter pen would be more than sufficient. You would save an absolute fortune in Rohypnol.

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