Apart from Coming of Age, I can’t think of a show that irritates me so much that I actually want to take an axe to my own body. Actually, that’s a lie. There’s load of programmes that make me think I’d be better off dead. Just Shoot Me is just the latest I’ve seen. You see, before I start work, I sometimes watch a bit of telly, just to get me in the mood, much like a boxer getting a rub-down before a big fight or the way a super wealthy business man psychs himself up before a huge meeting with furious masturbation and yelling insults at deaf people. Just Shoot Me gets me in the mood for a fight.

I know that a fair chunk of American sitcoms… no, scratch that… sitcoms in general, are complete dross. However, I’m prone to leaving sitcoms on while I do something else, occasionally distracted by the occasional howl of laughter of maybe a voice I half recognise. Mostly, it serves as a noise in the background that makes my house feel more interesting and full. There’s one on a Friday night, ‘After You’re Gone’, starring Nicholas Lyndhurst which is beyond rubbish, but not overly anger-inducing.

However, Just Shoot Me would make me raise an angry fist even if I was in a coma, rigged up to whirring machines and my internal organs resembling the insides of a can of chopped tomatoes. It’s appallingly bad. The canned laughter is the closest thing to ‘Not Quite Annoying’ in the whole show.

Somehow, I’ve seen around 30 episodes of this tripe, and I still can’t decide what winds me up the most. The show, if you’re lucky enough to have not seen it, is based around a fictional fashion magazine called Blush, which we see in cut-away segments. It features ambiguous article titles like ‘How To Get Your Man’, ’25 Boyfriend Tips’, ‘How To Get The Hollywood Look’ and ‘Foreskins: Good or Bad?’ Every time I see these words, I feel like I’m lost in a Heat commercial and it makes me furiously grind my teeth until I’m dribbling a substance that looks like gloopy plaster or paris.

Then there’s the entire cast. There’s the boss of the magazine who is akin to Commandant Eric Lassard from the Police Academy flicks, only thicker, camper and more gut-churningly awful. Then there’s this little guy who seems to have been given a job on the show by virtue of the fact that he looks a bit like a diet Dana Carvey. Only a self-serving smug version. Now, you may argue that these people are in character, but you get the impression that these dolts are simply extending their own ‘wacky Ho Ho Ho’ personalities… which is why I nearly black-out during any contact with this godforsaken show.

The rest of the cast mew and bicker and vom-up one-liners that would make Jimmy Carr shamefaced (that’s if he contained any morals, blood and didn’t have a wooden face). It’s all about various ‘issues’ that are extended and warp in such a way that you actually end up hoping that the assembled joy-vacuums end up getting killed in some dreadful atrocity. I can’t tell you how much this programme makes me seethe. The worst aspect? It’s Grammy winning. Jesus wept…