When he isn't macking your dame, Aerial Telly is often to be found in front of the television in the lotus position, in deep contemplation of the meta-issues behind the telly. The issues have been on my mind recently as we have just come through the despicable Turn-off TV Week where the self-appointed guardians of our cultural diet help save the world by "empowering" the masses to "take control of technology and not letting technology take control of them so they can live healthier lives". Well, thanks for that. I'd hate to think you didn't have a purpose or anything.

"Aerial Telly is often to be found in front of the television in the lotus position, in deep contemplation of the meta-issues behind the telly."

And the worst example of anti-tv hysteria is the White Dot organisation - a kind of quasi-fascist group who seek a Final Solution to the evils of television.

All of ya'll know by now that I embody telly so attacks on telly are an attack on me. And you can be damn sure I ain't gonna let that shit slide.

"Their argument is best summed up by the Why Don't You theme tune."

Whenever you see these jerks on the TV they are the most obnoxious, patronising arses imaginable. Their argument is best summed up by the 'Why Don't You?' theme tune. "Why don't you just switch off your television set and go out and do something less boring instead?". TV is a passive medium, their argument runs, and you have no say in the experience. The Man pumps TV shows into your home to keep you stupid and rob you of the few pennies you earn by beaming in images of consumer goods which you are powerless to resist.

It's true that members of White Dot experience TV as a passive medium. This is because they are witless turds who lack the imagination to engage with the medium. Their own inability to be an active participant leads them into the fallacy "I can't engage with TV, therefore nobody else can"

"Intelligent TV watchers engage critically with the shows, form discussion groups on their favourite shows, make friendships based upon them."

The experience of watching TV is exactly as passive as you want it to be. Intelligent TV watchers engage critically with the shows, form discussion groups on their favourite shows, make friendships based upon them, write theses about them and challenge received notions of the show. TV produces great art and it inspires great art - movie directors, writers, actors, songwriters have all been inspired by great TV.

TV has given us Helen Mirren, Robbie Coltrane, Paul Merton, Caroline Aherne, Paul Whitehouse, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, John Cleese, Peter Cook.

It provokes political debate, it's subversive, it facilitates change.

"(White Dot) spend their lives in a perpetual circle jerk wanking over photos of Steve Redgrave and Ellen MacArthur they cut out of the Sunday Express."

Great TV (and there's more great TV around then there's ever been) is life-affirming, inspirational. Far from preventing life activity, it promotes it.

Let's be clear about this. White Dot members are the kind of people who didn't have any friends at school, who joined the local branch of Mensa at the earliest opportunity along with the rest of the under-achieving puzzle freaks and are exactly the kind of smug, lower-middle-class suburban vermin who think Edward de Bono is a genius, get wet at the thought of fondue and spend their lives in a perpetual circle jerk wanking over photos of Steve Redgrave and Ellen MacArthur they cut out of the Sunday Express Magazine.

And the reason they want you to switch off the television and cultivate real-life relationships is because they want you to hang out with them listening how they got overlooked for promotion again and how their Bridge playing is really improving.

"Joyless, lifeless, condescending cranks who serve no function in society other than to dribble over themselves in TV interviews."

Joyless, lifeless, condescending cranks who serve no function in society other than to dribble over themselves in TV interviews

It says a great deal about the magnanimity of TV that it even allows these frauds into its sphere. But this also says a great deal about the moral bankruptcy of their argument that they have such little effect. Like a shock-jock broadcasting on short-wave radio in the Arctic Circle nothing they say means a damn thing.

Let's put that exclusive on the telly. Channel 4 are no doubt commissioning it as I write.