For any of you who stared agog at TV3's Dallas teaser last night (streamed directly from Pamela Ewing's troubled subconscious), things aren’t so bad. It's not as if you're being subjected to Italian TV.

There's no better way to get acquainted with another country's TV schedule than going on holidays and feeling sick for the duration. I've spent the last two weeks in Sardinia, mostly indoors, propped up in front of a telly. Last week the Olympics (the men's swimming in particular) was my saviour. The week prior, no such luck.

OK, there's the dubbing of everything (Mr. T's voice is thankfully quite authentic), dodgy music beds aplenty, and Burlesconi's Mediaset thrusting Amazonian blondes down your eyeballs at every opportunity. But that's just the tip of the iceberg.

One particularly wild Saturday night, holed up in a hillside shack with the noisiest aircon imaginable, the fellah happened to sit on the remote which propelled us into the world of Kurdistan TV. Funnily enough, there was little action there, but it led us to a world of wonderment. 

The tranny-lite bimbos on Mediaset paled in comparison to its satellite equivalent Starset - a channel that appears to be devoted to Burlesconi himself. When we stumbled upon it, we were greeted with the slow-mo montage of the former Italian president waving to crowds from podiums while a chorus sang a song in his honour. Put it this way, for a millisecond, it felt like we were in North Korea.

Moving on, we came across something called Art Oggie TV. Presented by a fat headless woman, the opening shot of the programme comprised of a close up of a bronze gnome for the guts of two minutes, with a backing track of elves chanting along with some crazed individual on a squeezebox. Apparently one guy on a handycam and unnerving elf music would make viewers want to purchase a gnome for their terrazza. This paled in comparison to the channel dedicated entirely to selling carpets.

Then there were countless jewellery shopping channels showcasing disembodied hands sporting rings like garters around an elephant's thigh, and diamanté bracelets being modelled on some bloke's stubbly wrists.

It wasn't just infomercials for stuff you didn't need, there was a 24-hour talent show station, with a slew of people showcasing their singing prowess on a rickety stage. The SKY channel description stated 'La descrizione dell'evento non e disponibile'. That roughly translates as "there is no description for this event", which is fair enough considering when we first turned it on, we were met with a guy dressed as Bono murdering An Emotional Fish's Celebrate. In Italian.

At the stroke of midnight, everything turned to sex and a world of botched boob jobs, member enhancing products to improve your "durada, intension and dimension" (it's called Idol Gel if you're so inclined). There was even a minge gel called Chilly, and a duck in a gimp mask during an advert for a holiday comparison site called Yalla Yalla.

In retrospect, the darker recesses of Italian TV is undeniably more entertaining than the pending new series of Dallas - even the floating humanoid bee-head that tells fortunes for several hours every morning.

For those more interested in focussing on the reanimated cadaver of Dallas rather than Italian TV's preoccupation with disembodied body parts, you can see the trailer below. It starts on TV3 this autumn.