President Oprah? You must be joking

When I appeared on her show, it was cheap, dingy and disturbing

I am an adoring fan of Alan Bennett, Fiona Shaw, Nicola Walker, the Royal Ballet Company and many more.

But I wouldn’t think to engage any of the above to rewire my house, build me a conservatory or assist with a tricky plumbing problem.

As for Oprah, I’d firmly warn against hiring her as a shoulder to cry on. Never mind consider her suitable to be the next President of the United States. Personally, I loathe Oprah. Here’s why. At the height of its popularity, Emma and I were invited to Chicago to appear on a mother-and-daughter edition of her famous chatshow. We were the so-called star turn, to be followed by other similar pairings of ‘ordinary folk’.

Arriving at the studio was a worrying eye-opener. A company, owned by a woman whose billionaire fortune and popularity had been made off the back of it, was a depressingly cheapskate operation. No dressing rooms or makeup artist were made available for guests. Only a small box of lipsticks and powder in the corner of a dingy green room. The producer herded us in and left to deal with a more pressing problem: another mother and daughter who were intent on making a bolt for it.

As Emma observed, the producer’s job was to keep these two hamsters on the wheel by whatever means. In between his clumsy attempts to cajole, the mother and daughter rowed, screamed and even spat at each other.

We left to take our seats on the Oprah sofa while the disturbing scenario continued. The daughter, it turned out, had convictions for driving under the influence and the mother feared for her grandchildren’s safety.

But never mind; in a matter of minutes, Oprah had expertly knitted the two together and they left the set smiling, to ecstatic applause from the studio audience.

Shortly after, Emma and I were bundled out, while being told, because of the budget, we’d have to share a taxi with the same mother and daughter and be dropped off at our hotel. We did so huddled in a corner, while the pair, now openly weeping, exchanged body blows.

Where was Oprah now? Busy recording another hit show. Television is a confidence trick. Its performers are there to entertain. Not to trouble themselves with aftercare for disturbed guests.

I rest my case.

The shooting season is over. A disappointment to Hattie, my working cocker puppy.

An estate whose owner provides a generous amount of private shoots surrounds my barn. Partridge and pheasant abound.

The advice of the beaters is to prevent a young dog, that you hope to work, getting a taste of a bird. This explains how a combination of Hattie on a lead, heading in one way and me heading the other, ended up in a pile on a slippery slab of stone.

Later, my left ankle had grown to the size of a tree trunk.

The only useful lesson I’ve learnt from this is to listen carefully to how the family describe your tumble.

If they say, ‘My mother fell over and hurt herself,’ that is good.

If they say, ‘My mother has had a fall,’ beware.

They are already using care home language.

The hobbling around in reasonable discomfort would not have bothered me, except I was due to fly to Spain.

I then have the genius idea of ringing my travel agent to ask him to organise ‘airport assistance’.

In my days of commuting to Los Angeles, I’ve warm memories of an electric, white go-cart ride from the First Class BA lounge at Heathrow to the gate, otherwise a twenty-minute walk.

The vehicle was actually for Mr Jerry Bruckheimer, who is to movies and TV ( Pearl Harbor, Pirates of the Caribbean, CSI) what God is to religion.

After the unsmiling, able-bodied Mr Bruckheimer turned up, we sat silently on the journey, while the driver beepbeeped passengers on foot in our way.

‘I feel a bit guilty seeing old people struggling with hand baggage while we sail past,’ I said to Mr Bruckheimer.

‘Just look at me hard in the eyes,’ he advised.

Unfortunately, airport assistance has now been outsourced. This time, I’m casually directed to a desk surrounded by elderly passengers in wheelchairs, who look to have been dumped and left.

Put off by the chaos, I opt to walk through security and wait for transport on the other side.

The vehicle I’m loaded into has locked glass doors; so when I, too, am dumped in a corridor, I can’t escape or even get to my phone.

No one tells me the flight has been delayed; so I remain trapped for the next twenty minutes, thinking I’ve been forgotten.

The sense of powerlessness is humiliating.

And I now think fondly of the charmless Mr Bruckheimer.