And so the serpent of news eats its own tail. On Monday's Daily Show, the host, Jon Stewart, reacted to the fact that Britain couldn't show a recent episode of the Daily Show.

As Stewart points out, Channel 4 can show live autopsies, oversexed teenagers and Gillian McKeith's toilet talk but can't screen footage of the Commons in a satirical context -- even when our parliament is being praised.

By contrast, the other 84 countries that show the Daily Show Global Edition -- "including such free speech havens as, I don't know, Chad, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen" -- could air the clip.

Is our parliament, Stewart asked, "too fragile to withstand a gentle parody, a good-natured kick to the clotted creams?"

He adds: "Here's the thing. I've seen the shit you air on Channel 4. It's basically a non-stop suck-and-f*** fest of teenage shagging, gay orgies and live autopsies and, of course, this lady . . ." At this point, he cuts to McKeith telling a victim, "If you switch to fresh fruit, vegetables, legumes . . . you will produce completely different poo. A poo that is aromatic."

You can watch the video of the segment on Mediaite [2] and the original blog on the ruling (featured on the show) is here [3].

There's also a discussion of the subject on the Today programme here [4] and Graham Linehan, who set the whole story going, did a whizzy Storify rendition of it here. [5]

PS. Has anyone actually seen that horrifying sausage advert on television? Thankfully, I haven't.

You can follow Helen on Twitter: @helenlewis [6].