If you don't like it, turn it off.

Alright, television and the internet are evil. That's been established by every keyboard militant in existence, enthusiastically judging the world around them through bitter eyes.

If you believe that then you are a moron. You are welcome to be that, but ultimately, it is inescapable that you hold such a stupid belief. Moreover, believing that makes you wrong. The internet and television are not evil, and if you're sensitive enough to be disturbed by the few things on television that have truly sordid, crass or vulgar elements in them, you cannot use that as a piece of proof. To say "aha! but I saw this programme called Tits and Guns which shocklingly turned out to be full of nudity, swearing and murder and that therefore proves that these two mediums are evil because it shocked and sickened me."

You have the choice to turn it off, or to decline from clicking the "Enter Site" button. And it's not as though programmes deliberately try to trick you into watching them by calling themselves one thing, like Teddy Bears in Cars, and then showing you Gang Rape in a Rover.

One recent news story is the source of this rant, people. It concerns Top Gear- the perennial programme of motoring fun, often in trouble because of jokes made that one man in a small corner of Hampshire didn't like and are therefore spoken by the tongue of Satan. The Christmas specials that were aired recently got into trouble for showing a place in the states where you can train in drive-by shooting, where Clarkson, Hammond and May proceeded to shoot at cardboard cut outs of the Stig, the (until recently) tame racing driver of the show.

The BBC and Top Gear are now "under investigation" by the broadcasting authorities because a bunch of soft people watched Top Gear, which is well aware of its own controversial nature from time to time, is vocal about the fact that some people won't find their humour tasteful and, to be honest, is inescapable in its reputation as a lads' programme where peurile, immature and fun are the watchwords.

One particular viewer said they were "sick to the stomach" watching the three of them drive slowly past cardboard cut outs of the Stig, who left the show a couple of months ago after the real life driver behind the image published a book about his time as the tame racing driver (The Man in the White Suit, currently on offer at Waterstone's). Let's put this in perspective. Top Gear have, in the past, done challenges which involved the "accidental" setting fire to a drive in car wash, Jeremy Clarkson being shot at by tanks in Wiltshire as they chased his four by four, May "endangering lives" in a mock, "terrifying", inability to steer fiasco with a zeppelin drifting over a busy airport, and enough jokes about politicians, hookers, innuendo and bodily functions to fill an entire routine on the 70s comedy circuit.

The first thing that jumped into my head when reading about this.

More than that, the Stig is not real. Introduced each week at a level of ludicrousness which was later adapted for the Chuck Norris quotes, he clearly isn't a real person, and even if he was, they weren't shooting at him, but cut outs. Cardboard. Carboard effigies of a character who is ridiculously afraid of ducks, is wanted by the CIA, sleeps upside down like a bat, is allergic to the Dutch, isn't machine washable and who, when he slows down, has brake lights appear on his buttocks. That's what was being shot at.

All we know... is he isn't real

Then there's the audience. Who are either kids, mostly boys, who love guns and explosions and read nothing more into it than "wow that's awesome" or people who are old enough and intelligent enough to have noticed the ridicule with which the presenters treated the challenge when they were told that they were going to be drive by shooting. They are not kids in Brooklyn who are shown guns every day and told how to use them. Nor is the appearance of three middle aged men driving very slowly and shooting cardboard Stigs going to convince people that it's the most fun they can have.

Gun-runners in a serious, gritty documentary. Clearly.

Even if it did, let's face it, it was a shit training manual if ever there was one. People following the lead on Top Gear would probably end up doing themselves more damage than anything else- as Clarkson almost did, burning himself on the empty shells.

Seriously, stop nanny-stating. Boys will be boys, even if they're overgrown and playing with bigger toys. But it's fun, and no one takes it seriously, so shut up and go home. And broadcasting officials? Stop policing like the gestapo did. If someone comes to you with these sorts of complaints, why do you jump to it every time? I don't recall you being so quick when I complained that the level of intelligence on most reality TV offends me. So stick these complaints in the same "ignore it, not worth looking into" drawer. Thank you.