Since you asked, Lord Grantham was in despair because his wife had grown distant from him. He makes eyes at a maid. The wench realises that such goings-on are not proper. She leaves her job without a word of complaint or a demand for compensation, as mistresses do, and the earl's wife acknowledges that she had "neglected" his lordship. Everything is for the best in the best of all possible country houses. Fellowes crowbars the affair into about ten minutes of airtime spread in bitesize portions over two episodes and then moves on to the next dish.

Can you imagine Evelyn Waugh, who once complained that no Conservative government had turned the clock back by a single second, and who described the casual cruelty of sexual betrayal as well as any other writer, looking on in admiration?

He would have seen what the programme's defenders cannot admit. Downton is neither cultured nor conservative. It is MTV for Tories, CSI: Shire County.