CONFESSION time: outwith working hours, I can be guilty of having a limited attention span. This has some drawbacks: I take in barely one-third of the domestic white noise, which means I am frequently surprised to discover that we have a wedding/anniversary/birthday party to attend, that I have agreed to fork out for a tradesman to clear the guttering, or worse, that an elderly aunt has died (it took me five weeks to become fully cognisant of the latest despatch).

It has its advantages, too. It has led to my becoming a compulsive zapper. On the rare occasions when I have possession of the TV remote, I am to be found flicking between channels with the dexterity of a pinball player of old.

There is a fascinating hinterland to be explored on Freeview: I have in my time strayed on to such diverse channels as Create and Craft (Channel 36), Movies4Men (48), CBS Reality (68), Horror (70) and CITV (122). I have a new favourite, though: Talking Pictures TV (81), which began broadcasting at the weekend, and which specialises in archive British movies. Those of us who remember the days when B movies were routinely screened before the main feature will be in their element. Just reading the synopses supplied by Talking Pictures is entertainment enough.

Consider the gems on offer today. We have The Voice of Merrill, from 1952 (“a dying author frames a radio narrator for killing his secretary”). Then there’s 1941’s The Devil & Daniel Webster (“a farmer makes a deal with the Devil to give up his soul for seven years of prosperity and good luck”) – fill in your own party manifesto joke here.

I will be setting the recorder for Woman Eater (1958), in which “a mad scientist captures women and feeds them to a flesh-eating tree, which in turn gives him a serum that helps bring the dead back to life”).

You can probably guess the plot of Hillbillies In A Haunted House (1967), but tomorrow’s Stormy Crossing (1958) deserves some elaboration. I fear that whoever came up with “a story of a fateful cross-channel swim. Great shots of Dover in the 50s” must have been at the end of his or her tether.

I am willing to bet that films of that calibre are still being made. However, in the absence of B movies (or supporting features to give them their Sunday name), you have to fork out the full whack to see them in the cinema.

Shame. Bring them back, I say. And while we’re at it, please can we have newsreels and cartoons? That would be ideal for those of us with a limited attention span.