Prizes for anyone who can make sense out of this.

I hope that none of you missed the rather bizarre new episode of “Lewis” that was on at the weekend. Intriguingly they have moved it to Sky Movies. I think this is a good thing. There are less advertisement breaks. This means that the fucking thing is finished more quickly.

Anyway this episode was almost surreal. It was called “Becoming Jane”. Hathaway went undercover to infiltrate a group of loonies, one of whom thought she was Jane Austen. This poor deluded woman (played by an actress called Hathaway – what the fuck are they doing?) may have dressed as the silly old trout Jane Austen (she is a neighbour of mine, as you well know) but had none of the wit or dexterity with words. Poor Hathaway was meant to get into her knickers, (in the usual rather than the literal meaning of that phrase), but obviously failed, as he was pining for Lewis. It must have been agony for him. I am not sure where Lewis was in this episode. Perhaps he was so deeply undercover that I failed to spot him. However as no one was murdered (the majority of the action took place in North East Hampshire, after all) there was no need for him. Had I been the director then that is one thing that would have been remedied. There are few scenes less likely to have me yelling for a serial killer or a troop of psychopathic Samurai than a circa 1800 country house ball. What a bloody dire scene that was, a bunch of upper class twats moving around exchanging meaningful glances. Either a troop of psychopathic Samurai or Sid James would have done the trick.

I have a slight suspicion that the splendid Kevin Whately may actually have been the female lead, although, if this was the case, then the relationship between Lewis and Hathaway was very strange indeed. I give up. My reason for suspecting this is that the loony who thought that she was Jane Austen often lapsed into an accent that I could have sworn was Geordie. Even stranger, Hathaway’s undercover character was called “Wisley”, which is almost an anagram of Lewis. In one scene, the lead female, who may have been Lewis, joined in a game of cricket. Had she managed to get into the England team, her nickname would have been “Lewisy”, which would have been an anagram.

I really don’t understand what was going on. Perhaps one of you more familiar with the homosexual lifestyle would care to comment and perhaps remove some of my confusion.

I am sorry if all of this is less than lucid. (Not that anyone would have noticed the difference).

Anyway, the episode also featured Maggie Smith and Ian Richardson, and managed to completely avoid using their thespian excellence – quite an achievement.

One of the main threads of the plot seemed to be a conceit that suggested that Jane Austen had a bit of a shagless affair with that bloke out of “Shameless”, and drew on this relationship in order to produce her literary works. What a load of bollocks. They will continue this theme with Shakespeare bumping off his missus in order to find inspiration for Othello, Dostoevski murdering old women and Dickens being guillotined.

More worryingly, if this experiment proves successful (and who is to say what criteria equate to success when we are presented with such dire entertainment) then the next episode of Lewis might find him and Hathaway relocated to North East Hampshire. I suppose that they have already bumped off every academic in Oxford, so why not. If they do move down here, then I shall be more circumspect about my home security – evidence suggests that no one is safe with those two clowns in senior positions in the local constabulary. Please be vigilant. If anyone does manage to bump off Ms Austen, then I am the obvious next in line. I have often considered a career on the stage or screen, but don’t really fancy playing a decaying corpse while Lewis and Hathaway mince around discussing my soft furnishings.