Two superior examples of situation comedy returned in the past seven days, and even now the watercoolers of the land are thronged with fans swapping bon mots from the previous night's episodes (unless that's Heroes).

Last Thursday the second six-week series of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency began on Radio 4 (11pm), with our intergalactic sleuth (Harry Enfield, still perfect) somewhat down on his luck and obliged to dress up as a gypsy woman and tell fortunes. “Come and warm yourself by this sprig of flaming white heather,” he enjoined a record company executive being stalked by a couple of demons. They arranged to meet the following morning at 6.30 so that Gently could save the terrified man from a fate worse than death. Gently overslept and the man disappeared. “Ah well,” Gently said, philosophically.

Earlier he had gone through the morning's post, discarding final demands but falling gleefully on a mailshot from a charity because the envelope included a free pen. It was a moment familiar to lovers of Ed Reardon's Week, which itself began a new six-week run yesterday (Radio 4, 11.30am). We found the world's most frustrated author in rather less straitened circumstances than usual, living with the successful writer Mary Potter (the point being made was obvious, but unspoken) and earning regular money by condensing the works of more successful writers for readers with short attention spans. He got Nick Hornby down to half a page, Tony Parsons to a single paragraph.

There was a beautiful little throwaway scene in which Reardon corrected the grammar of the nubile literary agent, Ping. She said something “would of” happened, he pointed out that “would have” might take longer to say, but had the advantage of being grammatically correct. Later we learnt that Ping had a double starred first from Balliol. It summed up him, her and the times - he, with his dedication to a language battered beyond recognition; she, with a good brain that has sifted out the bits it needs to be successful and discarded the rest.

Elgar the cat went missing, and Reardon hung a four-page “Lost” notice on lampposts. Then a large cat was spotted floating down the canal, and Reardon fished it out. “Oh, Elgar,” he said, with more tragedy in his voice than King Lear.

By the end, all was well. Elgar lived still, and Reardon had gone to a lot of trouble to bury a mere lookalike. And Mary Potter had departed, driven away by Reardon's jealousy and inability to change. So, no girlfriend, then, but his flat was his own once more and his cat was by his side. Misery may love company, but it likes to choose the company it keeps.

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