WE don't wish to sound fuddy-duddy. We don't wish to be considered prudish. We are certainly not applying to join the Moral Majority.

But, politely and quietly, we ask: what is happening to the television programmes that are beamed into our homes every day?

For a start, Hell's Kitchen features a foul-mouthed chef called Gordon Ramsay. There is no point to his foul mouth. It just utters abuse for the sake of abuse. It achieved nothing by calling Edwina Currie a "pathetic bitch" - a phrase extended by its habitual use of an f-word - except a little notoriety.

Ramsay is foul-mouthed because that's what made him famous. Once there was the Galloping Gourmet. Now there's the Swearing Chef. It is a paper-thin act on a paper-thin show that is so clearly stage-managed it is reminiscent of the wrestling bouts Dickie Davies used to introduce in the 1970s.

It doesn't shock, it only saddens because of its pointlessness.

Then we move onto Big Brother. In the first series, the contestants sang "it's only a game show" to keep up their spirits.

But Big Brother is no longer a game show. It is a freak show.

It stars sad young things who are so desperate for 15 minutes of fame that they will parade their sexual freakishness until they get it. And it is made by producers who are so desperate for 15 minutes of publicity that they have engineered the most freakish of sexual situations. How they must be salivating when one of the sad young men - who know how much exposure he'll get by having sex on live television - starts fantasising about the fake breasts belonging to the female-who-used-to-be-a-male.

And at least one of this freak show's stars is so disturbed she should be in an institution rather than playing into our homes on a nightly basis.

Now we're not going to be outraged by all this because that is exactly what they want. They want us to blow our tops and start screaming banner headlines about their pitiful programmes.

No, we'll just quietly shake our heads, turn off the rubbish and head for bed in the knowledge that this is just sad, sad, sad, and that television can't get any worse. Can it?