I’ve been lacking inspiration when it comes to writing recently. What I’ve managed is to obtain a new found apathy towards current events; it’s not been a great few months for satire to say the least. There’s Ed Miliband surprisingly winning the Labour leadership from his brother of course but I’d have found it much more interesting if he’d beaten his brother in a ‘who looks more like a character from the muppets’ competition. I started wondering if anything would ever be funny enough to be worth writing about again – whilst there are jokes to be made about Gazza’s negotiating skills they seemed a bit distasteful and a bit of a ‘no-go’ – then, out of the depths of morning television, like a majestic piece of spontaneous comedy gold: Jeremy Kyle gets an envelope thrown at him.

Say what you will about the programme, there is no denying that when it comes to daytime television there is nothing more amusing than a man with little moral compass taking the decision to chuck an empty envelope at the unknowing head of ‘Jezza’. The build up to the said event was equally as funny; after telling the guest he was his child’s biological father ‘JK’ gives the mother the card and throws away the envelope to the side. This is routine on the show – not that I watch it very often of course. The father then asks: “what did you throw that away for” and the duel begins. Jeremy responds in a sardonic tone: “it’s an envelope…” which gets a decent laugh from the audience. After a bit of sparring ‘Jez’ eventually goes to get the envelope, never missing a chance to mock guests he isn’t so keen on (to put it lightly). As he goes on about ITV cuts and blah blah blah generic credit crunch joke – he throws the first punch…or envelope in this case. Brilliantly enough he goes off in the other direction trying to get another joke out of the situation: “If you could be as good a father as you were an envelope collector the world would be a bet…”

And then it happened. A comical slapping noise as it rebounds off his head, an inhalation of breath from the audience, a rush from the bodyguards to come to the hosts defence, and most importantly a bloomin’ great laugh. Not on the show, that was me. Never before has such a small thing been made to look so dramatic. It kind of reminded me of being back at school, except not even then did we throw envelopes at each other – aside from paper aeroplanes but that was never malicious. Personally my favourite bit followed it. The guest’s response was quite frankly a piece of genius, like the witty guy he is he cuts Kyle deeply with; “throw it at me I’ll throw it at you…your mum”.

Yes, he used “your mum”: a classic piece of schoolboy taunting. Truly a testament to the usual kind of guests they get on the show – not that I watch it very often of course. It gets better, he later goes on to state, “I will knock you out” as if he were talking to a guy that looked at him a bit funny down the pub on a Saturday night. There is so much more to love about the sequence of events as well but I’d recommend you watch the clip, particularly the way he smoothens his hair back into place. Makes you realise how amazing an envelope is, that it can ruffle up a TV presenter’s hair and make them look like they’ve had to rush out of the house that morning without checking their appearance.

Whatever you think of the ‘chavtastic show’ there is always a comfort watching it knowing that there are some people out there who have it worse than you. If you don't watch it and hate the man then that's even more reason to watch the clip of him being attacked by a violent and deadly envelope, I'm amazed he didn't get a paper cut. It’s human nature to judge people and the show is simply another outlet for judging humans and mocking their simplistic nature. After all, anyone with any self-respect would just buy a DNA test online, see a councillor, or go to rehab if they really wanted to get through these troubles with expert help – and without being made a fool out of on national television. The disappointing thing is these people exist whether or not the Jeremy Kyle show was around or not – not that I watch it very often of course.

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