You don't have to be a born-again Christian or Mahayana Buddhist to believe in the existence of a soul distinct from this physical realm. Just watch Young, Dumb & Living Off Mum (BBC3, Tuesday) and you can actually feel that part of you dying.

If the title alone doesn't make you throw your TV out the window and go live on a mountain top in hermetic isolation, a few minutes in the company of its implausibly dislikeable subjects think low-rent Pixie Geldof clones without the towering contribution to human cultural endeavour sure will.

While there's a half-arsed hint at self-improvement for the kids, the real point to this odyssey of idiocy is watching the charmless cubs sample quote: "I dropped out of uni because I stank too much" being put to work and squealing in horror at having to change their own pants.

After earlier stints in the hotel business and that bastion of honest graft, the fashion industry, this week saw them sent to toil on a farm.

To be fair, few people consider shovelling shit and sawing up carcases hobbies. But stuffing chickens into crates and chasing piglets around looked sort of fun, like the training montage in Rocky although the show could have done with a romantic 'Rebecca Loos on The Farm' moment to really get the elbow grease flowing.

They finished up cooking in the farm restaurant, where further revelations emerged about onions and pastry notably, that they exist.

Loser of the week was Rachel, who pulled off the coup de gracelessness of pitching up with a bottle of wine. Farmer Ian couldn't have looked less impressed if he'd got a Defra letter saying it needed his herd to test an ebola strain.

Meanwhile, the gang on Test Match Special (BBC Radio 4, all summer) continue to find time to occasionally mention cricket between itemising the countless pork pies and chocolate cakes donated by lonely listeners.

If anything can drown out the shrill yawps of Young Dumb's aspirant convicts, it's descendants of actual convicts being eaten alive by Big Fred and our lion-hearted boys, while Henry Blofeld waxes post-colonial about a fan-sent flan.

Somehow, Britain endures.

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