By Jeremy Clay

Caprice is feeling rather chuffed with herself. She’s not normally one for cooking, but here she is in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches to a three-course meal on a celebrity edition of Come Dine With Me (8pm, Channel 4).

She flashes a delighted grin at the camera. "If I phoned up my mum to say ‘you’re not going to guess what: I cooked tonight’, she would say ‘are you completely on crack’?"

That’s a good question. It would certainly explain the entertainment she’d laid on for her dinner guests.

Ah yes, her guests. Jimmy Osmond, Nicky Clarke and Wotsername who married Vic Reeves: a list which must have been dreamed up in the midst of a particularly unpleasant bout of malaria.

They’d wolfed down their main course when Caprice invited everyone to her pool so they could eat pudding while enjoying her surprise: a display of synchronised swimming.

If you ever needed confirmation that the lives of the air-kissing classes are utterly removed from our own, then here it was: Osmond, Clarke and Thingy, scoffing chocolate fondant while watching a pair of swimmers assume the flamingo position, in unison.

For those of you who’ve never seen it, the idea with Come Dine With Me is that a group of strangers take turns to cook meals for each other over four successive nights, then mark the results.

After Caprice, Nicky and the other one had served their time in pinnies, it was Jimmy’s go.

Not to be outdone by Caprice, he’d hired a dwarf as the master of ceremonies, who he later made dress up as Elvis.

If I didn’t know better, I’d wonder if he too had been at the crack.

Strip away the bizarre antic, though, and Come Dine With Me is a very ordinary show.

It's had a primetime upgrade from an afternoon slot, and still gives off an unmistakeable whiff of daytime. And like most daytime telly, there's about as much point to it as shaving cream has for the Taliban.

Tune in another time and you'll find its sole redeeming feature is a sardonic voiceover by Dave Lamb, who dots his narration with bitter asides and the occasional startlingly angry interjection. "Oh grow up," he snapped last night, at Caprice.

But last night’s show reached a plane of such supreme queerness, I’d have happily watched Osmond and Caprice play dinner party one-upmanship for weeks.

How long before she stuck dolphins in her pool? And at what point would he have hit on the idea of employing a bearded lady to dish out the drinks?

*I’ve run out of room, but the beautifully glum Lead Balloon (9pm, BBC2) is back, and as sublime as ever.