Addicted to TV drug dealers

T he Wire is what some people might refer to as 'a really good television programme'. But, to me, Bergerac, Bod, Triangle and Go With Noakes were 'really good television programmes'.

The Wire plays a much more significant role in my life than any of those ever did. It has proved such a mental and emotional distraction that I’d feel as if I was cheating on my wife - if she wasn’t so complicit in the whole thing. We’re almost like one of

those perverted Primrose Hill set couples who invite a third party into their love life. Only in our case it's not Kate Moss or Sadie Frost who's making up the threesome but a programme about drug dealers in Baltimore.

Both of us have become so destructively immersed in this sprawling urban opus that we're almost unable to talk or think about anything else. It's like a form of Tourettes, whereby we swing any conversation round to The Wire.

I've been promoting my book over the past couple of weeks. Every time an interviewer asks

My wife and I are almost unable to talk or think about anything else