I haven't turned the telly on for what must be over a year now. I remember a time when I used to scan the newspaper's television page every morning to find out what was showing that evening. These days I would rather stay in and do something more interesting instead.

Television is no longer an option for me, I'm very sorry to say. Let's face it, the quality of programming has gone downhill faster than an Erith council estate. The so-called 'celebrities' who earn vast fortunes for showing off in front of millions of brain dead viewers are only partly to blame.

What has happened to the programming in this country? Why does the population content itself to watch dross like Strictly Come Dancing, X-Factor, Britain's Got Talent and Big Brother without questioning why television companies have become so lazy when it comes to thinking up original drama and comedy shows?

ITV is now completely unwatchable for anyone over the age of 14 with more than five brain cells rolling around in their skull. Just think back to the good old days when Thames TV held the franchise. Shows like The Sweeney, Minder and Benny Hill once had us glued to the box on week days before LWT took over at the weekend to air gems such as The Professionals, Auf Wiedersehen Pet, The Gentle Touch, Upstairs Downstairs and Bouquet of Barbed Wire.

A couple of years ago, out of pure desperation, Lady P. - who tired of my constant moaning about today's television - eventually treated me to a box set of the complete Sweeney Series 1-4. At the start of each episode, even the old Thames theme tune - dum dum dum dum, dumm dumm dumm daaaaaa - brings the memories of a golden age of TV come flooding back. Actually, dum dum dum dum, dumm dumm dumm daaaaaa sums up today's programmes rather well.

While we are at it, do you remember the LWT theme? If not, here it is (you have to sing it allegro to really get the best effect): dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum, da da da, la la la laaaaa, bom bom bom bom.

We used to moan about the programmes in the 70s and 80s but I now realise how spoiled we really were. Granted, there was some rubbish aired. The Black & White Minstrel Show was quite rightly taken off air, as was the most famous and popular mimic of his time, Mike Yarwood. Poor old Yarwood only had a repertoire of about six impressions including Frank Spencer, Harold Wilson and Frankie Howerd. The only way you could tell which one he was doing at any one time was to check his props: beret for Spencer, pipe for Wilson and messed-up hair for Howerd.

At least there was a good range of programmes to choose from back then, even though there were only three channels when I was a lad, ie BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. I can only assume they had to work harder in those days to catch the audience's imagination.

I guess the rot set well and truly in when Channel 4 arrived on the scene. The first programme Channel 4 aired back in 1982 was the most boring programme of all time. Yes, Countdown. And they're still churning it out to this day!

We had to wait until 1997 for our next terrestrial channel and you know what I'm talking about, don't you? Yes, Channel 5, the station which convinced us it is acceptable to have commercial breaks every ten minutes.

Though I am not a lover of today's televisual offerings, my good lady wife is more forgiving. She took possession of Top-Up TV a couple of years ago and spends hours trawling through the listings in search of rubbish to watch when I finally head off to bed.

Lady P. can watch trash for hours and enjoys nothing better than a good dose of Katie Price, Big Brother, Embarrassing Bodies, Sex Education Roadshow and countless other mind numbing, brainwashing, soul destroying garbage. My wife's feeble excuse for inflicting this rubbish on her poor brain is: 'I just like to mong out in front of the TV and not have to think about anything'.

And there I've been, deluded for all these years, under the impression that my wife was born in Spain, not Dartford.