Many are couples, straight or gay, who have clearly been together for years and loathe each other. Only habit and hatred holds them together.

Then there is the odd celebrity, passing strangers, most of whom give me a smile and a nod, friends who stop for a chat...

And, as I sat in my car preparing to drive home, a nice lady and her son who came up to me to tell me how much they used to love Entertainment USA.

Interesting that - I get a dozen or so similar pleasant comments each week. Yet the expected negative sneers or hissed insults? Perhaps one or two each YEAR.

Not quite what the tabloid caricaturists would have you think. It's a very different world out there from the extreme headline one painted by the simplistics.