A collective scream echoed around the Midlands Connect offices when new Chancellor Rishi Sunak name-checked our flagship rail scheme in his maiden Budget speech on March 11.

The episode’s unwillingness to fully commit to the pathos of the Bart-and-Laura subplot is all the more frustrating considering its laugh quota is more than filled by a rollicking B-story that finds Homer, he of the iron stomach and insatiable appetite, filing a lawsuit against The Frying Dutchman when he’s hauled out of the eatery against his will after consuming all of the restaurant’s shrimp (plus two plastic lobsters).

be nought hereat dismayd, / Till well ye wote by graue intendiment, / What woman, and wherefore doth me vpbrayd […].

Prince Charles spent the night in the hospital after he took a tumble off his horse yesterday while playing polo and briefly lost consciousness.