Why can't we all be Friends?

I have recently learned to embrace something about myself that I - and many like me - have hitherto kept hidden beneath a (thin) veneer of pop cultural cool.

I like Friends. Wait, scratch that. If you're going to fess up, do it properly. I love Friends. I watch it every week night that I'm in. I find it cleanses the palate between work and home - the melon sorbet of my life, if you will.

It happens like this: I arrive home, take off my work clothes and hide my them inside a closet. I turn on the tv to the Channel 4 News and feel good about myself for 53 minutes as I nod earnestly in agreement with Jon Snow as he harangues the latest liberal hate-figure.

Following straight after is the earnest but generally unwatchable 3 Minute Wonder series of user generated twaddle. You can see Channel 4's thinking: "no one advertises during the News so we might as well look like we give a toss about our viewers seedy, sad little lives while we're at it."

A few ads, then Friends: Fun. Funny. Friendly. Fluffy. Disengage brain and leave it by the side of the bed. You ain't going to need it for a while. Hope to God no one calls. There's the opening gambit and the punchline (the best of the show); always worth a chuckle or even an out-and-out belly laugh if it's one of your favourites.

And you're down in your armchair, singing along to the theme tune (scientific tests have shown that this lyric will stay with you long after you've forgotten your bank account number, passwords, your wife's name, etc.)

You relax. Good Friends. Nice Friends. Hypnotic Friends. Yes, I will conform to the social norm. Yes, I'll buy some Appletize or whatever is sponsoring it this month. Just programme me, wind me up and watch me go. Just give me my fix.

For a long time I denied myself. It was a secret that would forever be denied, like listening to Virgin Radio late at night, buying tickets to a Keane concert or thinking your best mate's a really good looking bloke.

I know I risk ridicule or worse at the hands of my cooler friends who would drop me quicker than a fuck-buddy with syphilis if I asked them which season they thought Rachel looked fittest throughout (the second of course) or which of the boys you relate to the most (Ross, to my further shame).

I, though, have come out of the closet. I now feed my inner middle-Englander/American with shameless abandon. In a world with Iraq, Afghanistan and whatever else the folks at Channel 4 have uncovered, I think we all need Friends.

You know, I think there's a 3 Minute Wonder in this.