Do look at the mantelpiece while you're stoking the fire, OR, how to be a top quality scamster

I overslept very badly indeed today, which meant I didn't go swimming.

However, it meant I could listen to Woman's Hour on Radio 4, which alternately encapsulates the best of British culture, and the worst.

After this morning's show, I'm not sure whether to be depressed or elated. It featured a long and involved discussion of mantelpiece culture . Yes, your eyes do not deceive you (even the show's producers must be ashamed: they don't mention this piece in the synopsis). A woman named Clare Jenkins explained that her eyes were drawn to her mantelpiece during the adverts on TV, and she began to wonder about the various ways in which mantelpieces are used. Then she discovered a whole academic groups of mantelpiece researchers.

From this programme (and I'm sorry to sound like a Daily Mail columnist here) I discovered absolutely nothing that two minutes' thought would have unearthed. Mantelpieces developed as fireplaces grew from holes in the wall to something neater. Some people use their mantelpieces to show off expensive things, other people display sentimental items, and some people just put any old stuff on there (a vet's appointment card was cited as evidence).

Jesus. Put Jenkins down for a Nobel.

So I'm in two minds. Do I welcome the Tory education cuts because there's clearly fat there, or should I celebrate. After all, if there's room (and interest from Radio 4) for Mantelpiece Studies, then my own research interest (1930s Welsh Writing in English) is safe and healthy.

Now, the little bit of liberal in me that I haven't managed to kill off is saying 'everything humans do is intrinsically interesting and important, and you shouldn't attack fellow toilers in the paper mines', but most of my brain is shouting 'she gets paid for this? And gets national media interest? This is the worst kind of mimsy upper-middle-class bourgeois, pointless, inconsequential, reactionary nonsense', and a tiny voice is saying 'nice work Clare. Good scam. No heavy lifting, regular pay cheque. Sweet'.

Your thoughts, ladies and gentlemen. Shall we all enrol in Mantelpiece Studies 101?