Not that it's a slow news day or anything, but Bill Oddie is in trouble with viewers for providing unnecessarily racy commentary on Springwatch. According to reports, the former Goodie backed footage of two sparrows mating with the words: "The female is asking for it - and getting it, basically ... She's doing that wing-fluttering thing as if to say: 'I am a baby, feed me now' ... and is getting quite the opposite ... That's a wing-trembler she's just had there."

Later, while watching two beetles having sex, he proclaimed: "One thing's for sure - this boy is horny," before going on to role-play the part of the female: "Come on big boy, come and get it ... Oh, be gentle with me!"

Now this is bloody sexy stuff. No one could hear that without getting dangerously turned on. In fact, according to the state-of-the-art Raunch Gauge based at Wookey Hole in Somerset (founded in 1978 to monitor fluctuating levels of steaminess in network broadcasts), that particular edition of Springwatch was the second most arousing broadcast since records began - eclipsed only by the notorious 1984 edition of News at Ten in which a trouserless Sandy Gall vaulted the desk and violently rubbed his crotch against the lens for 10 whole minutes in a desperate bid to perk up a report on Sealink ferries.*

Gall's shenanigans took place 24 years ago - a long time in broadcasting, where memories are so short that even top TV executives regularly forget where their own mouths are while eating, which is why The Ivy is full of grown men and women smearing food all over their faces like babies and slapping the table in a panic. The horror had long since faded. Consequently Oddie's XXX-rated outburst caught the population unawares. Within minutes, millions of viewers nationwide found themselves driven into an uncontrollable frenzy of slavering lust, grinding themselves against the nearest person or object in a desperate bid to satiate their desires. The carnage was indescribable, hence the glaring lack of newspaper reports about it.

Once they'd finished mopping up, viewers picked up the phone to complain. Stop making animals sexy, they screamed. It's freaking us right out.

And they're right. Animals aren't sexy, especially when they're having sex. Let's list the reasons why.

Reason One: the lack of experimentation. It's all rut, rut, rut as far as the animal kingdom's concerned. You never see goats giving blow jobs or a pair of foxes trying out the reverse cowgirl position. Two dogs banging away in a shop doorway won't even look round to check out their own reflections. They'll sniff each other's bums, but that's about as warped as they get. There's a crushing lack of imagination in animals' sex lives ... which might go some way to explaining reason two ...

Reason Two: the lack of facial expressions. Human beings perform all manner of crazy facial distortions during intercourse - Peter Sissons one minute, Marty Feldman the next. It's all part of the fun. Sometimes it's tempting to break off in the middle just to point and laugh, especially when your partner pulls a face like someone who's recently dropped a piano on their foot but is trying to conceal their agony.

Animals, on the other hand, don't pull any expression at all - or at least nothing we humans can interpret. They look the same as always, ie glazed and bored and impossibly dumb. Concentrate on their faces and it's like watching furry handymen changing a plug. There's no passion there. Not even any kissing.

Reason Three: their genitals are all over the shop. Animal penises, in particular, are the stuff of nightmares. Kangaroos have a bifurcated penis - and "bifurcated", for those of you watching in plain English, means "forked". The echidna pushes the envelope even further: its penis has four distinct heads. Dolphins have retractable prehensile schlongs which can snake about like monkey's tails, grabbing passing objects and throwing them into the air. Fun at parties? Yes. But sexy? No.

Anyway, while it's legal for humans to watch animals having sex, it's illegal if we decide to join in. God knows why, because the act of bestiality itself is surely punishment enough. It certainly doesn't look like a barrel of laughs. Years ago, while I was working in a second-hand record shop on a quiet day, a fellow staff member surreptitiously passed me a gaudy A5 magazine called something like Zoo Fun or Farmyard Hunger, filled with depressing photographs of humans and animals locked in congress. One image, in particular, burned itself into my mind: a man standing on a tree stump having sex with a cow. Both he and the cow appeared bored out of their minds; two colleagues begrudgingly completing a chore on a cold, cloudy day in Denmark. That's not sexy. That's a bad day at work.

In summary then: animals are rubbish in bed, and you shouldn't have wayward thoughts about them. No matter what Bill Oddie says.

*This is absolutely not true.

· This week Charlie had the fifth series of The Wire slightly spoiled for him when someone blabbed about an important plot detail within earshot: "In any sane world, I'd be able to sue them." Charlie visited a cash-and-carry, marvelled at the shelves filled with huge boxes of penny chews, and bought a year's supply of cola bottles.