REBUS and other TV detective shows are giving a distorted impression of police work, according to a survey of retired officers.

The work carried out by real-life detectives, even on murders, is far more routine and boring than the dynamic depiction we are familiar with from shows such as Taggart, according to research by Manchester Metropolitan University.

Well, tell me something I didn't know. Many jobs, including journalism, have a barely recognisable TV alter ego. I am always tickled by the depiction of journalists on screen. Days lost in the boozer. Going AWOL for three days while investigating a tip-off. A boss in braces whose only advice is: "Take all the time you need". Yip, that's how it goes down here. In fact, I'm sitting typing with a fag hanging off my lip and my feet up on the desk, just waiting for that phone to ring, at which point I'll grab my trenchcoat and trilby and spring into action.

But what, pray, is the alternative to these fanciful depictions of working life. Reality TV? Oh, please. Surely we have reached televisual saturation point on docu-soaps featuring mundane, real-life jobs.

Fair enough Ice Road Truckers and its ilk, which feature unusual occupations with truly death-defying elements, but now the genre seems to be plumbing the depths with dreary programmes about estate agents, parking attendants, and, new this week, people who answer calls on a council complaints line.

No offence if that is your job, but would you tune in? No, after a hard day's graft, we all need a little fantasy in our lives, not the grim penance of having to sit through someone else's tedious working day.

RENT-A-GOB has been at it again.

Now that life has turned out swimmingly for the daughter of the 6th Baron of Blah Blah Land, Kirstie Allsopp has turned her attention to sorting out the lives of the nation's youth.

In the midst of pitiful employment rates, a return to the social mobility of Dickensian times, wage freezes and sky-high property prices, the TV busybody has sensed that the young 'uns need her guidance.

Young women, she brays, should leave school and get themselves a job and then a flat and then a boyfriend and make sure they have babies before the age of 27.

Higher education can always be returned to when your family are grown, she explains, as if acquiring a degree was akin to picking up a hobby like flower-arranging, the only purpose of which is to pass time.

For those born into privilege, a la Allsopp, going to university is neither here nor there in terms of how life will pan out. But for a great many people who are academically minded and who must rely solely on their own efforts to make something of their life, putting themselves through university is likely to be the single most important thing they can do to widen their opportunities.

While I'm sure she means well, Ms Allsopp knows nothing of the dilemmas of ordinary young people, and needs to stick to making pretty baubles.

A page boy was the envy of many this week when he managed to duck out early of the Queen's Speech after fainting. To be fair, with only 11 pieces of new legislation being proposed it was a much swifter affair than previous years, but it was still a bit of a drag.

What was most notable about the whole drama was the cool professionalism of Her Madge, whose only reaction to the kerfuffle as she spoke was a momentary flick of the eyelid. What a pro.