Each time one channel loses its interest, there are 137 others waiting for my attention. I saw a program about a man who was so overweight he had to have his front upstairs window removed and be hoisted from his bedroom by a crane.

I thought the look on his face as he saw open sky above him for the first time in 11 years was the most moving thing I had ever seen.

TV shows could spend their time feeding the hungry, building better housing, improving sanitation and doing good deeds.

Morris Telford

That is until I stumbled upon channel 98 – the 24 hour prize bingo channel, they had markers on there the likes of which Tony "two fat ladies" Codling himself has never seen. It’s hard to believe I managed for all those years in Moreton Say with just five channels, six if you count S4C.

It occurred to me that if they can manage to fill 137 channels every day, they produce enough TV in three days to fill a whole year. This got me thinking. We must have produced more films and television shows than one person could ever possibly watch in a lifetime, so why make any more?

Just have a seventy or eighty year cycle of repeats and then all the people that spend time making all the films and TV shows could spend their time feeding the hungry, building better housing, improving sanitation and doing good deeds.

I’m going to write to all the major film companies and networks and see what they think.

Last night in the Hotel today, tomorrow I start hitchhiking.

If you repeated the news people would notice, you’d have to keep making news programmes - and Countdown.

I’m going to a roadside diner frequented by truck drivers. I’ve seen the film Convoy so I expect to fit in quite well.

Morris Telford

Up to the day I left Moreton Say I had seen every episode of Countdown ever made, from the day Channel 4 started, a fine programme and the only remaining safe haven on British television for Richard Stilgoe.

I begin my hitchhiking odyssey across the USA this morning, according to the hotel desk clerk, Rodney, who looks quite astonishingly like a 1960s Robert Wagner, the truckers are my best chance of a long ride so I’m going to a roadside diner frequented by truck drivers.

I’ve seen the film Convoy so I expect to fit in quite well.

I ordered a pot of tea at the diner and offered to buy breakfast for anyone willing to give me a lift somewhere.

My biggest mistake was trying to emulate the CB Radio talk I assumed all truckers use and my overuse of terms like ‘good buddy’, ‘10-4’ and ‘rubber duck’ seemed to give the wrong impression and I found myself in an enclosed space with 50 large tattooed men who thought I was making fun of them.

I found myself in an enclosed space with 50 large tattooed men who thought I was making fun of them.

Morris Telford

Buying everyone breakfast seemed to calm them down and a man called Shirley with a shaven head and arms as thick as my neck welcomed me into his cab. He isn’t much of a talker.

I just called home today for the first time in a few days. No-one was in.

Shirley is smoking a long green cigar that smells of turpentine. The truck cab is filled with an acrid smoke and I’m not allowed to wind a window down.

I think my eyes are bleeding. I tried to tell Shirley about my mission to help people, make the world a better place to be in, but his life philosophy seems to be repeating the phrase - ‘don’t talk to me pinhead’ which makes connecting on a spiritual level quite difficult.

Shirley dropped me off at a motel, which is like a hotel but spelt incorrectly.

Before he dropped me off I did learn one thing about Shirley; he’s a woman.

I told her she had beautiful eyes as I left the truck and for a moment beneath the bald, muscular exterior I saw a frightened little girl.

Called home again. No answer. I hope everyone is alright, Mother seldom goes out during the day for longer than 45 minutes, the time it takes to walk to the chemists and back allowing time to buy some Tunes, a tooth-friendly lollipop and renew her prescription.

Once, in 1996, she was gone for nearly an hour, but that was only because a tractor hit her.

I could never get Mother or Aunt Felicity to venture as far afield as Market Drayton, so I’m obviously very happy that Toby could achieve this.

I’m going to walk down the roadside and see what travel companions fate brings to me.