Goodbye, old friends

I used to get very annoyed by Big Brother. Don't watch it, people would say. I don't, I replied, it's just that it's taking up tv time that could be better used. But it's Channel 4, they'd say, if they had that time, they'd only show even more episodes of Friends.

It's true. In London you're never more than 10 yards away from a rat, they say. In the land of Channel 4, you're never more than 30 minutes away from a repeat of Friends.  Surely, even people who like it hate it now. Me, I don't hate it but I don't like it. I don't like it so much I've never watched it.

So the news that Channel 4 is going to stop showing it next year has filled me with alarm. If Friends is what they show now when they've got nothing better to offer, what will they show when they haven't got that? And with Big Brother going too, that's a whole summer to fill with - what?

Between now and next year they've got to find a huge amount of cheap programming. Monkey tennis is getting nearer and nearer.