RITUAL humiliation has never appealed to me as a spectator sport so I can't join in the discussions on a range of popular television shows.

Big Brother; I'm a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here; The Weakest Link; Susannah and Trinny's scathing indictments of what people wear, and anything with hidden cameras, would see me peering from behind the sofa like a five-year-old when the scary monster's on. Being a grown up who can survive peer pressure, and work the off switch, I just don't bother.

The nearest I get is forcing myself to tolerate Paxman because I do like University Challenge, though one of my favourite TV memories is the Red Dwarf version and dear old Bamber Gascoigne returning to blow Paxo to bits.

Like anyone with a hang up, I blame my parents, who brought me up to believe that humiliating or embarrassing somebody wasn't big and it wasn't funny. It was just plain bad manners. As a result, I feel sorry for the victim and embarrassed for the perpetrators.

But worse will have arrived by the time you read this - a second series of How Clean is Your House? (was there a first?)

I can't believe anyone is so desperate for their 15 minutes of fame that they'd actually invite two champions of clean into their home to tell the nation what slummocks they are and how to get the new pin look.

Maybe they aren't and they don't. Pre publicity says the subjects are often nominated by a "concerned" friend or relative. Concerned isn't the first word that comes to mind. How about "interfering" or "spiteful"? And why don't those dropped in it by others just say no?

Kim Woodburn, with fellow clean-freak Aggie MacKenzie, mops up and gives hints, and claims: "There's time for leisure and time for cleaning." Housework, she says, is only a chore if you let it build up.

Living with a man oblivious to his surroundings, who passed the trait to our daughter, I once did nothing for a month, except clean the kitchen and bathroom, wash and cook, simply to prove the point. I recorded here at the time that neither of them noticed.

I gained loads of leisure and catching up wasn't so hard but, even in my protest weeks, I stuck to my own priorities, clean kitchen and bathroom and home-made food. Dust hurts no-one, nor does untidiness. It's all a question of priorities.

I knew someone who spent months stripping her doors and skirtings back to bare wood and waxing them to perfection, while her fridge cultivated black mould. She was happy at a pretty low time in her life and her children didn't get food poisoning.

The ideal, of course, is to have a "treasure wot does" - except I'd need to clean up before she came.

He who doesn't notice if the wallpaper turns black and falls off (I am not joking, it did after storm damage) will also drive round in a car thick with mud and flies as long as the windows and lights are clean (priorities again).

That may change. "It'll be the next thing up your way," said our host, who really knows how to treat his guests and began a recent day out with a trip to his local car wash. "I first saw it in Lancashire and it started here about six months ago."

"It" is the hand wash and, on Saturdays at least, ropes in hordes of teenage lads to clean the wheels and give the car a shampoo, rinse and leather. I'll use that; it takes less water and is less claustrophobic than a machine, and there's no risk of forgetting to take the aerial off.

* Our real destination was Bolsover Castle, where our unofficial entertainment during lunch in the caf came from the marquee erectors for the coming festival of food. I hope the caf found some English butter to replace the Lurpak.