We don’t have a TV aerial on top of my house so the idea of watching The Daily Show while it’s actually on remains something of a fantasy but one of my favourite YouTube wastes of time is hunting down clips of Stephen Colbert. Now resident on his own show The Colbert Report (don’t pronounce the ‘t’s), Colbert’s schtick is perfect: masquerading as a loud mouth bully of the American Religious Right, he spoofs the conservative voice by spinning its mean-spirited, war-hungry urges out to comic conclusions. His speech last year at the Whitehouse Correspondent’s Association Dinner was one of the ballsiest piece of comedy you’ll ever see, making vicious mockery of George W Bush’s Good Ol’ Texas Boy act as the President sat, forcing a weak smile, just metres away.

One interesting development, however, is Colbert’s recent appearance with the man his schtick depends most on - Billy O’Reilly. O’Reilly is the right-leaning talk show host who promises to be the American media’s “no spin zone”, raging against the liberal media, singing the praises of Guantanomo Bay, and referring to the people of Iraq as “primitive” and “prehistoric”. Colbert and O’Reilly have clashed a couple of times on screen, and while you would be wrong to expect fireworks - even at his most vicious, Colbert only delivers blows through a velvet glove - it’s interesting that beyond the ideological gulf, there seems to be a weird professional respect between the two. In a political landscape so often split like a chasm along partisan lines, it’s a odd relationship; sorta reminiscent of the fascination/repulsion thing Hunter S Thompson had with Nixon - old enemies united by a shared understanding: “He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time.”