I am excited about Merlin. It is a razzy prime-time drama centring on a hot teenage King Arthur, a hot teenage Merlin, and Zoe Slater from EastEnders, doing medieval pouting. I will be getting tea on our Round Table early on Saturday nights, so we can bolt down our puddings and watch it.

Yes, I am also excited about the return of Strictly Come Dancing. The prospect of the ITN reporter John Sergeant – looking very much like Rembrandt in Lycra – doing the pasa doble is thrilling. Gary Rhodes, doing the tango? Cherie Lunghi, attempting a jive? Get in there! Only a fool would miss it.

And, of course, reentering the orbit of You’ve Been Framed is one of autumn’s greatest joys. I will never tire of watching cats falling off things. But the reason it doesn’t matter if these shows are any good or not is because we are lucky enough to be British.

And being British means that, when autumn comes, as a nation, we still gather together as one to watch the same five programmes; unlike the poor unhappy Americans, say, or Japanese – scattered and lonely across their ultimately futile 300 channel choices.

Subsequently, the actual content of the UK’s autumn schedules is an essentially nugatory affair, compared to the real sport: discussing it afterwards. It doesn’t really matter if Merlin turns out to be more Bored in the Stone than Sword in the Stone – because when the credits roll, we can spend all evening discussing exactly why it stinks.

Likewise, if they’ve fatally miscast Strictly Come Dancing, and come up with nothing to match last year’s exciting romance between the hot bloke from EastEnders and his dancing partner – well, that’s another hour of pub conversation, right there. It’s the same every year. Two years on, the BBC’s big, awful autumn flagship show of 2006, Robin Hood, still informs my life. I can easily while away an hour with friends, discussing just how annoying Maid Marian’s fight scenes – straight out of the Miss Piggy School of Kung-fu Chops – really were.

So yes. Draw the curtains, gather the family round – and let the autumn of 2008 bitching commence.

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