Now wash your hands...

There is something worse than the virus out there apparently. It's called 'no soaps' (and I'm not talking hand-wash). Yes, 'no soaps' and it's just around the corner. Already the soap to other TV ratio is diminishing. Soaps are down to a couple of times a week, dragging out to what they laughing call 'suspense' to eek it out so that women of a certain age and men of an interesting persuasion don't go totally batshit crazy.

There are obviously things 'that some viewers may find distressing' in the episode of this soap (distressing like shouting, moaning, sneering, tea-drinking, pizza-eating - oh, and kidnap, murder and helicopters falling out of the skies) but all of those potential errors are better than this 'no soap' desert that is coming.

Emmerdale will be a normal Yorkshire village again, Coronation Street just another street in the less affluent part of Manchester, Eastenders may even cheer up a little (unlikely, I'm 'avin a larf, ain't I?), and Doctors and Hollyoaks - well I really have no idea.

What will people do without their double deal daily dose of Cain, Paddy, Rita, Roy, Phil and Dirty Den? What will men of my age drool over now that the soap totties are all off-air (they all start off as ordinary females and then transmute themselves into hot babes who change their sexual preferences at the drop of a... well, let's say hat). It's all so very entertaining and in thirty-minute easily digestible chunks - no thought required.

Of course, there is a negative side to losing our soaps. Soaps are a great educator. All life is there and it helps us to accept our difference, the LGBT world has become more acceptable to the 'masses' thanks to soaps. Gaslighting, grooming, drug abuse, alcohol dependence, domestic violence, disability, depression and other mental illness - they've all been addressed by soaps. Yes, it's not all fun murders, serial killers, kidnapping, car accidents, plane crashes, viaduct disasters, heart attacks, suicides and bunny boilers - they have their serious side too.

Don't despair though, the world we are living in currently is more dangerous and unbelievable than any soap. If the cast of Coronation Street were not loafing on the street but locked inside their terraced houses, The Queen Vic closed and empty, everyone in Emmerdale standing six-feet apart, wearing plastic gloves and face masks and fighting over toilet rolls... Well, it would simply be unbelievable, wouldn't it?

Not to worry. Some viewers may find scenes in their real lives distressing so don't be afraid to call the Action Lines - if you can get through.