True news story: Israeli police have arrested a 62-year-old television presenter for allegedly having TV executives beaten up when they turned down his programme ideas. “Have I got a winner for you — Israel, You Call That Talent? No? Okay, well, what about a medical drama, Goyim with the Wind?”

The first thing that stuck me about this story was that it would make a jolly good TV series. Over-the-hill presenter starts killing ridiculous television people as a sort of vigilante critic while presenting an unwatched cookery show. Think Dexter meets Parkinson. But the best thing about the story was the presenter’s name: Dudu Topaz. You really couldn’t make that up. I expect he is now known as Deep Dudu.

Meet the British was a compilation of official tourist film, mostly from the 1960s and 1970s, made to be shown abroad to attract tourists to Britain, showing them helpful bobbies, cheerfully punctual bus conductors and lots of things that swung — fashion, pop music, shops and dolly birds. It was all quite amusing, but no more so than looking at old episodes of Nationwide or Tomorrow’s World. And it made me wonder what the statute of limitations on mocking yourself is; how long does the past have to sit in a cardboard box in the attic before it can be safely laughed at to its face? The things we remember as part of all our yesterdays grow to become ridiculously naive and aesthetically bilious.

Here were the unforgivable sideburns, the dolly birds in bikinis for no apparent reason except that dolly birds should always be in bikinis and mascara, preferably jigging from foot to foot on the spot. And here was the I’m Backing Britain campaign started by half a dozen secretaries who decided to work an extra half-hour for no pay. It caught on, and half the country did it — I had an I’m Backing Britain mug. At the time it seemed sensible, charitable and patriotic, a very contemporary mass movement. But seeing it again on TV, it looked risible and rather pathetic. And here were those absurd bowler hats and cheeky cockneys and patronised foreigners and, bizarrely, a pair of lost Africans in overcoats walking nervously in a ploughed field.

It was all a lesson, not in the foolishness and political incorrectness of the past, but in the vanity of the present; in us imagining we inhabit a moment of sophisticated good taste and wisdom, immune from scorn. Because as sure as mullets are mullets, you will live to embarrass your future self.

There was one enormous and enviable difference between now and then: the 1960s and 1970s projected a view of Britain that was openly, staunchly and joyfully optimistic. Despite the 20th century having more than its fair share of intolerance, it was 100 years of hopeful predictions. Ingenuity and technology were going to welcome in every new dawn and improve our lives. The future was always going to be a better place, and that made people happy.

We now, on the other hand, have misplaced our optimism. Although our recent current affairs have been relatively comfortable, peaceful and bountiful, we are relentlessly miserable about the future. Imagine a Tristram trying to resurrect Tomorrow’s World. The title itself would seem ironic — everything on it would be technophobic and about home-made ways of staving off inevitable disaster. We don’t bother predicting the future, we just hope we can die before it gets here. I will make a prediction: in 50 years, our self-obsessed, craven fear of things to come will look just as funny and pathetic as the 1960s do today, but mostly it will seem like a silly waste.

Talking of pathetic, miserable pessimists, House returned this week. Much as I enjoy Hugh Laurie’s gothic creation, I must say I am surprised he has managed to last this long. It’s not merely the number of times he’s been shot, had incurable diseases, taken overdoses and been in multiple pile-ups, it’s his narrow range of dramatic possibilities. He really has only one answer to everything. The programmes are somnambulistically repetitive, and the ever more improbable medical conditions add up to coin-tossers.

In this new season, the personal drama has grown more intense and unpleasant and strangely homoerotic, and the set is even less like a real hospital — there don’t appear to be any other patients or staff, just the intractable conundrum of conditions kept in a glass cage. It has a whiff of Frankenstein and fascism about it, with its medical experiments conducted on expendable donors, and it’s lost its sense of humour. Laurie seems to be not just angry and miserable as House, but angry and miserable being House. His vile temper is aimed at the baroque plots and nonsensical script. He’s just pissed off having to be on set. All the sexual tension has been frittered away into wary posturing. In the end, flirting has to make a move or find something else to do.

Part of the pleasure of House is noting that, without his American accent, Laurie is a type of Englishman you find in all the professions. There are doctors, lawyers, publishers, academics and journalists who are all at home in House. I’ve rarely worked for an editor who didn’t make him look like Mr Pickwick; only in America, where good manners and all-round niceness are the default setting, does he seem like a character of twisted psychopathic invention. My diagnosis is that House has something terminal and could jump the shark any episode. Of course, the shark will be suffering from delusions, have beriberi and will probably be incubating its own unborn twin. So enjoy the suffering while it lasts.

There is a moment in Katie Price: The Jordan Years when the cameraman-director, who is also the voice of this film, goes to interview her first plastic surgeon. The camera is welcomed into a plush consulting room; the doctor smiles and says, “I have something for you.” He reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out a pair of soft plastic pillows. “These,” he says, “are the first implants I ever put into Jordan.” The camera stares with awe, the director’s voice is husky with wonder. “These are the actual implants?”

“Yes,” replies the doctor.

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