Blame the heatwave, or simply put it down to post-holiday listlessness fanned by a woefully lacklustre summer TV schedule.
Whatever the reason, I spent far too much time this week obsessing over one small thing: Gregg Wallace trying to say “effortlessly”.
He appears to have added a syllable, which perhaps shouldn’t surprise us, given the extra G in his name.
Gregg’s mind and mouth somehow combine to turn effortlessly into “effor-let-lessly”, which, believe me, is a lot harder to say than it looks.
Hopefully, Gregg, below, will say it again over the next few weeks, now that he is back on BBC1 with the non-civilian version of MasterChef – the show I hold fully responsible for his almost inescapable presence on our screens these days.
Celebrity MasterChef has been running for so many series that each fresh line-up reveal compels me to double-check that the contestants haven’t already done it.
That said, the Beeb has conjured up a cracking list of names and the show has already reeled me in for another year.
Putting Paul Chuckle, right, in the opening heat might’ve had something to do with that. Placing Nancy Dell’Olio alongside him definitely did.
That said, at one point I did cough loudly like a man at a wedding who doesn’t wish to forever hold his peace.
It was when the narrator said: “Lawyer and media personality Nancy is best known for her appearances on Strictly Come Dancing and Celebrity Big Brother.”
The fact that what she’s really best known for – Sven-Goran Eriksson – didn’t appear in that sentence may have had something to do with the first word of it.
Sadly, Nancy was first out this year.
Paul’s still there though, which will have surprised some people.
Not least Gregg, who clearly thought he wouldn’t be around for long - and so dived straight in with some “To You, To Me” bants, despite Paul having barely had time to get his apron on.
Now, I wish I could say Gregg’s homage to Chucklevision was both spontaneous and hilarious, delivered with the comic timing of a legend like Barry Cryer.
In truth though? He couldn’t have made it look any less efforletless had he tried.
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