Having undergone a slight change of circumstances, I'm attempting to cut back on expenditure, having fewer of those little luxuries that make life slightly more meaningful – you know, like heat, light, food, wireless broadband internet access. One of these luxuries is undoubtedly multi-channel TV. I only really watch 3 non-terrestrial channels: 1. UKTVG2, for old comedy re-runs that I find soothing in the early house of the morning. 2. UKTV Food, for the peerless Jenni Barnett, and the familar clank of saucepans that provides the soundtrack to my days spent at home. 3. BBC News 24, for huge, depressing headlines skimming across the bottom of the screen alerting me to danger lurking outside my front door. Now, you wouldn't have thought that you'd have to fork out too much for those 3. But of course I can't just get those three. I have to take another 200 channels and an extra phone line that I don't need, and pay literally dozens of pounds a month for the privilege. If one is attempting to cut back, having a spare unused phone line just looks like needless extravagance akin to employing a butler. I've tried to find another way of having just those 3 channels at minimal monthly cost, but with little success.

Freeview and Freesat looked tempting initially, but Freeview doesn't carry the Food channel, and Freesat is a motley collection of channels such as Big Game TV, FRIENDLY TV, nation217, Reality TV +1, Best Direct+ and Golf Pro-Shop. Marvellous for the fidgeting, compulsive channel-hopper holding a worn out remote control, but probably no good for me. Jenny takes a Sky package, so yesterday morning I sat in front of her TV and had a look, to see exactly what I was missing.

I ended up watching a quite incredible show called “Good Morning Psychic” on a the depressingly named “YouTV2Extra” channel, Sky 180.

Adele, on the left, is a youthful, chirpy presenter who is thrilled at getting her foot on the TV ladder, not realising that the number of rungs has increased dramatically in the past few years and she may never get further than extolling the virtues of a shitty 5-day break in Thassos on TVTravelShop. On the right, we have Daphne. Daphne claims to be a psychic. She's serious about her predictions, and gives short shrift to anyone who dares doubt her. “Those people who think that it's all a load of hocus-pocus,” she says, looking sternly into the camera, “can think again! This is very, very magical.”

It's certainly compulsive viewing. Viewers ring in and leave messages on a voicemail system, which are then replayed in the studio (thus avoiding the embarrassing possibility of someone screaming “Lies! Lies! It's All Lies!!”) Questions may vary from “I have a blister on my foot, will I die?” to “Does the girl who has just started working in accounts like me?” No further details are forthcoming from the callers, no name, age, socio-economic-leisure-class, nothing. But that doesn't deter Daphne. She shuffles her pack of cards in a clumsy fashion, and lays out 4 or 5 of them on the table in front of her, out of our sight, and uses the information gleaned from these cards to Predict The Future. “Can you tell me if me and my girlfriend will marry?” asks one man. “Will her 4-year old boy come to look at me as a father?” Daphne is pleased to discover the “Happy Ever After” card, and the “Dreams Coming True” card have both shown up in the hand she has dealt, and holds them up to prove it to us all. These particular 2 cards show up with unerring frequency throughout the programme. No “Trampled By Herd Of Cattle” card, no “Oh No! Immersed in Bathtub of Effluent!” card. She passes on positive Energies to the caller, assuring him that everything will be just fine. “But if you'd like a proper reading, maybe call me this afternoon,” she adds. An 0906 premium rate telephone number is on the screen constantly, reminding you that you're one step – and a crippling phone bill – away from having your destinies revealed.

Adele really wishes that she was on a Saturday morning kids' show on the BBC, and who can blame her. She tries some chatty banter with us, the viewers. “Now, I'm sure you're all comfy at home there, tucked up in bed, with your jim jams on -” but Daphne interrupts, with cacophonous laughter. “Oh, hahaha! It's so TRUE, isn't it! You DO, don't you, wear jim-jams! On a Sunday! Oh, Adele – we're not letting you out of the studio! You're too good!” Fear flashes across Adele's face, at the notion of being trapped for ever in an episode of Good Morning Psychic. But she regains her composure, to read out a message that has been sent in from a woman with a headache. “I have a headache,” reads the message. It's time for Daphne to exercise her healing powers. “I feel that you've had an abandonment programme that has been running for several hundred lifetimes,” she says casually, a sentence which makes my head spin and my lungs fight for air. Say, 300 lifetimes, average age of 50 or so, that's what, 15,000 years that this poor woman has been suffering. Daphne then attempts to reverse this seemingly irreversible trend by demonstrating some “cleaning”, i.e. absent-mindedly swinging a lump of “crystal” backwards and forwards.

Oh, that's better. “Now, I also want you to try and think with the left hand side of your brain,” says Daphne. I try and meet this challenge myself, as I also have a slight headache. It's pretty hard. I turn the left part of my head towards the screen, and focus. Jenny is to my right. “What are you doing?” she asks me, the question clearly directed at the right hand part of my head. I ignore her, with my right brain, and continue to focus on the left. My head hurts even more. Daphne's advice isn't working. She deals out 4 cards, and pulls out the “Happy Ever After” and “Dreams Coming True” cards, like rabbits from a hat. Thank god. We're all going to be OK.

She urges everyone to always Move Forward. It becomes the mantra of the show. Always, always move forward. Never enter some kind of timeslip worm-hole, never do that, always continue to live, obeying the regular elapsing of minutes and seconds. If you concentrate, it can be done. Really. Move forward. There, I feel you're all coming with me, even now. As one. Let's not confuse the energies, though. Clear and balance our chakras with jade, for example. Daphne advises a girl about to take her driving test to wear some brown shoes. “I'm giving you brown shoes,” she lies, having no access to a spare pair of brown shoes in the correct size, and no forwarding address for the caller. Brown shoes will, apparently, ground her, stop her spinning off into space, perhaps. Shoes that obey the law of gravity. Probably sensible. But in case there's any doubt, you can always call Daphne after the show, for a price.

The website of these Psychics, these people with Extraordinary Gifts, is – rather wonderfully – www.psychic-tv.com. More hilarity will ensue if you pay a visit. But don't accidentally end up at www.psychic-tv.co.uk, which details the history of Genesis P Orridge's post-Throbbing Gristle industrial combo. That won't help you pass your driving test, or assist you in finding out what's coming up in terms of promotional opportunities at work. But then again, nor will www.psychic-tv.com, to be honest.

Marie ends the show with a cry of despair, barked frantically from her Birmingham flat. “I want to know if I'm going to have a relationship” she says, before replacing the receiver. In a rare moment of lucidity, Daphne suggests that Marie is unlikely to have a relationship, unless she moves forward. Move forward, Marie. Move forward, by refusing to give any money to these exploitative, talentless, mercenary bastards. Hope that helps, my love.