Michael Gove got loads of press at the start of the week when he criticised Blackadder. Maybe that's unfair. Not the criticism he got - the focus on Blackadder. After all it wasn't the only TV show he mentioned in the Mail - he actually wrote, referring to the First World War: "The conflict has, for many, been seen through the fictional prism of dramas such as Oh! What a Lovely War, The Monocled Mutineer and Blackadder, as a misbegotten shambles - a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite."

And that's the really important fact that is being forgotten here - that there are LOADS of TV shows out there masquerading as trustworthy historical documentaries and brainwashing us all. For example...

It's Lent. In spite of attending Catholic schools, which seem to be quite hot on it, since the age of 7 I have never done anything for Lent. My own Baptist church never seemed to get too het up about it either. So it wasn't until last year I acknowledged and did something for the 40 days run up to the Easter weekend.

What did I do? I helped start up the Brighton Feminist Collective's project 40 Days of Treats, a counter action to 40 Days for Life prayer vigils. Inspired by a project going on elsewhere in the country, we decided we wanted to do something similarly supportive that wouldn't cause a ruckus. It involved the collective delivered flowers, cakes and cards to the staff at our local Bpas clinic to show our appreciation as the 40 Days of Prayer and Abort 67 protested outside. It was peaceful. Apart from the time I started a ruckus. Well, I didn't start it. I and a plastic foetus were somehow at the centre of a tiny ruckus. A ruckuslette, if you will, as I delivered cake.

A hirsute being with lips that don't quite meet and eyes with no whites contemplates the  sea. "Hey guys, let's walk into the ocean and live there" the being seems to sign to the others. And they do. Cue swift evolution and mermaids, or aquatic apes if we're being scientific here WHICH WE TOTALLY ARE. 

This is the scene Animal Planet used to convince viewers of their pseudocumentary that mermaids could be real. Actors, wearing what look suspiciously like costumes left over from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, portrayed our ape ancestors apparently making conscious choices regarding evolution for Animal Planet's Mermaids: The Body Found. This was convincing enough to prompt some to demand the Truth from The National Ocean service, who disappointingly released a statement saying: "No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found"