I may accuse my housemates of being two-dimensional but this takes the cake. If you studied French at school you might have had to endure little taped 'slice-of-life' soap opera-styled sessions, where some family or other does something in French and you get to listen in and try to understand what's going on.

Here's the English equivalent on the World Service 'Learning English' site, called The Flatmates. Click here for the first episode and work your way through. At the time of writing, the latest episode deals with the humour behind a joke involving a play on the words 'purpose' and 'porpoise', which seems a wee bit technical - I'd be struggling if that was in French.

Also of note is the corner cutting by the graphics department. There are four Flatmates. Each has been drawn only once. The four drawings are then rearranged in front of a different background photo for each episode's illustration. Very occasionally an expression changes, other than that the four are stock still throughout the 22 episodes to date.

Update: Read the Language Point explanation of different types of English joke. It's a masterclass in sucking the life out of something funny. Watch in awe as it is explained that dolphins wouldn't normally talk to each other, but for the purposes (porpoises?) of this joke, they do...