30 Mistresses

'Mistresses' is great. It features sassy, older female characters misbehaving horribly, and is utterly brainless. In short, it's perfect veg-out-after-four-hours-sleep evening telly.

However, I don't know if this struck anyone else as so brilliantly laughable as to be insane, but the new series also features a character, Siobhan, who has a young baby - possibly six-months-old judging by the size of her (and we new mums love to endlessly analyze TV babies).

At night, when baby has gone to sleep and her unsuspecting husband is similarly out for the count, Siobhan sneaks out of the house, hangs out in upmarket hotel bars and picks up strange men, before having hot, nameless sex with them. She then pops back home again, and slips back into bed, where hubby is still snoring. All without once checking the baby monitor.

Obviously I understand this is a mainstream BBC1 drama and not to be confused with real life in any shape or form. But even so. At six months after the birth, most of us are just about getting used to sex with our own partners let alone sharing our episiotomy scars and taking our clothes off in front of complete strangers. The idea that after months of deliriously wide-eyed nights, when our darling baby is finally sleeping through, we would then actually want to dress up to the nines (in the dark mind, with full make-up), and drive off into the night for a bit on the side is too fantastical for words. Most days we don't even put lip-balm on. And what happens when, inevitably, baby wakes up at 2am? Sorry angel, Mummy was too darn busy getting jiggy with that creepy older guy in room 402 to worry about changing your nappy or feeding you. But don't worry, she'll probably be back in the morning, just looking a teeny bit worse for wear. And smelling of unfamiliar aftershave.

Of course, this is partly why we like 'Mistresses'. We may not actually want to be Siobhan. We would frankly much rather have another ten minutes shut-eye than a meaningless brief encounter in some godforsaken Travelodge. But we like the fact that she is supposed to be a new mum who is still sexy and still being naughty. It just makes us feel a bit exhausted watching her.