Helen, have to pull you up on the Monty P and Fawlty Towers points!

Both were hardly discriminating against minorities in their targets, and often the main targets were the RP speakers. "Upper Class Twit of the Year" is an example from Monty P that immediately springs to mind; and Basil Fawlty himself was the main fool in Fawlty Towers. Definitely an Englishman!

It's extremely unlikely you'd see Rab C.Nesbitt over your side of the pond, but in that you have a Scot taking the mickey out of very local Scottish ways and speech in a way that not only the Scots find amusing. It's been shown on BBC2 at peak time.

Then there was "Spitting Image", which had some excellent vicious satirical moments and, again, targeted the established order if anything more than minorities.

I suppose I'm playing down the "mis-use" and playing up the "freedom of expression" side of TV.

It ain't all bad!