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Let’s not kid ourselves, it’s going to be torture, isn’t it? It always is. The nerves, the big occasion, the fear that a single slip-up may be fatal. Sometimes I wonder why we put ourselves through it.

But the fact is we always have and we always will. Yep, there’s no way on earth we’d ever miss an episode of MASTERMIND (7.30pm, BBC Two), even though we’ve noticed lately that presenter Clive Myrie has this really funny way of saying “yairsss” when someone gets an answer right, as if he’s taking the mick or something, and it’s starting to get a bit distracting.

Specialist subjects tonight are the life of Anne Lister (the woman who inspired the drama Gentleman Jack), the musical Dear Evan Hansen, the feature films of David Lynch and

Queen Elizabeth I (those are two separate subjects, I should stress. Queen Elizabeth I hardly made any films at all, although she did play a prominent role in Blackadder II).

Of course, there’s also a fair bit of football today, and sometimes that can get quite tense as well. England’s lunchtime opener, against Iran, is on BBC One, with kick-off at 1pm and an hour’s worth of the usual waffle from Lineker and co. beforehand. Wales’s first match, against the USA at teatime, is in the hands of Mark Pougatch and his ITV chums, with coverage from 6.05pm and kick off at 7pm.

Elsewhere, back to more serious matters, FOOD UNWRAPPED: COMFORT FOODS SPECIAL (8pm, Channel 4) is going to tell us why pork pies have that nasty jelly in them.