A nation echoed with rage and despair as news hit the fan that Michael Winner’s rather obvious answer to Come Dine With Me - Michael Winner’s Dining Stars – has been threatened with cancellation after just one series.

Somehow managing to wedge itself into ITV’s prime Friday night slot (like a cantankerous pensioner on a bus, fiercely guarding their seat from expectant mothers or people on crutches) the series has ended with just 1.92 million viewers.

Apparently that’s not enough. Despite everybody responding with real gusto to that E-Sure advert, it seems that 30 or so seconds is all they are prepared to put up with of this man.

People. People, people. You are so missing the point. I admit it, I’ve only seen one episode, but the many highlights included:

• Michael Winner touring Essex in a limo

• Michael Winner dressing up as an atypical Essex boy

• Michael Winner phoning his host beforehand to pour scorn on their menu, and get their pants a’flapping

• Michael Winner being rushed to hospital after choking on a balloon in a party trick gone horribly wrong

Most of these did in fact happen.

OK, so there’s not a great deal of incentive for the contestants. You get a grumpy and difficult restaurant critic to come round to your house and have to re-mortgage it in order to produce a meal you’ll think he’ll like. Have him shuffle off half way through to record his thoughts so far. Have him shuffle back and complain that the next course you’ve spent ten minutes waiting to serve because he’s been out the back is cold and lumpy.

Then once that ordeal is over, you journey to a disused cinema and have him tell you and the people you invited round to impress and entertain him how you did neither. And you can’t really cook. And the pudding was cold and lumpy.

Then one of you gets awarded a Dining Star. What are you going to do with that? Stick it on the fridge? I doubt it’d even earn you so much as an audition for Celebrity Masterchef, you’re going to need a DFS advert under your belt before they’ll even consider you.

And yet. That’s absolutely no reason to cancel it. Give it a chance, it could well become the next Coach Trip.