In pop culture it is not the case that continuity and staying power are virtues all by themselves. Case in point: Saturday Night Live, now in its 42nd year. That makes it a youngster by Desert Island Discs standards. In the opinion of your humble host here, though, and of a great many people known to me, the damn fool thing should have been put out of its misery long ago.

For reasons I have given up trying to understand, Mrs Derbyshire likes SNL. I therefore perforce catch some of it on Saturday evenings when I've been too busy or disorganized to get myself to bed before 11:30.

So it was last Saturday, the day after President Trump's inauguration. I worked late on a project in the adjacent room, so I heard most of the whole stupid thing.

It was wall-to-wall anti-Trump Social Justice Warrior flapdoodle, hosted by some Indian chap — dot, not feather — who claimed to be in trembling terror that the Trump administration would deport him. I really hope they do.

The low point was a maudlin tribute to Barack Obama: two of the show's female principals singing the old Lulu hit "To Sir With Love" as images of Obama floated across the screen.

To judge from the hoots of laughter we'd been getting at every anti-Trump reference in the show, I assume the recording studio was packed with hipster progressive types; so that by the time these performers were ten bars into the Lulu song, there must not have been a dry eye in the house.

The problem in my house was me trying to hold my dinner down in my stomach where it belonged.

The comment I liked best on that performance came from a blogger whose name I've forgotten, re-tweeted by Ann Coulter. In North Korea, the blogger pointed out, weepy tributes to the Dear Leader are at least coerced. The SNL crew were performing this dreck voluntarily.

I can't improve on that. For God's sake, NBC, replace this show with something entertaining. The North Korean People's Army Song and Dance Troupe would be an improvement.