I need my Cold Feet

I suppose I could take up knitting. Or perhaps I could join a yoga class. Or even ration myself and try to make the Sunday papers last through until bedtime. Either way, I have got to find something to do when Cold Feet finally comes off air this weekend.

The hole in my TV viewing schedule will be enormous. For five years, I have religiously followed the trials and tribulations of this group of best mates in Manchester. I have sat, mouth slightly ajar, deaf to the telephone, concentrating, empathising, laughing and crying as they have gone through life's essential matching, hatching and dispatching experiences.

There is nothing like it on the telly. Erroneously called the British Friends, it is much more akin to the American Thirtysomething series that I remember gripping me way back when I was a twentysomething. Over its five eventpacked series it has, with a combination of humour and pathos, dealt with some of the most traumatic problems ever to besiege a group of pals - from testicular cancer to alcoholism, through IVF, to infidelity and divorce.

This group, which started out so carefree, managed to get through all that life can throw at it and come out with f r iendships intac t . Which is Cold Feet's appeal. In this climate, when friends are the new family, we like to think that if any of us had to have a testicle removed, our mates would stick by us too.

But then Cold Feet has always been a product of its time. Born at the dawn of New Labour in 1997, the show is a homage to all its Chianti-quaffing, sensitive-Tory principles. Originally set in London, it was only moved up north at the last minute, where, unlike anywhere else on British television, it seems absolutely fine to be middle class.

Karen's nice kitchen and nanny would be considered smug in Islington, but north of Watford none of it even raises an eyebrow. Rachel and Adam can quite happily bid a quarter of a million pounds for a flat without being revolting, rich toffs. And David, whose very tricky job entails answering the telephone-importantly, sporting a pocket calculator and plenty of afternoon sex, seems able to support Karen and the three kids in her big fat house, have a bachelor pad of his own, fly club class to Australia, while bidding £250,000 for a property, and have a spare £15,000 in his current account to pay for Adam's flat deposit.

The man's loaded! He's proof that it's not so grim up north. In fact, if it weren't for all that death and cancer, the Cold Feet gang has the sort of pleasant middle-class existence that we all hanker after. And whereas Sex and the City teases you with unobtainable shoes and ridiculous gymkhana corsages, Cold Feet gives more than a passing nod to fashion - although Helen Baxendale's outfits in the first series, T-shirts underneath smock frocks, did leave a lot to be desired. As did Fay Ripley's pubic wig.

Outfits aside, I'm also fond of their chatting. Mike Bullen's genius script, which he says is based on real-life friends, takes his audience to the edge of tears, then sneaks in humour to save the day. His marriage of comedy and drama is unique.

As are some of the lasting images produced by the series. James Nesbitt running down the street in a pair of red underpants chased by a giant testicle. Robert Bathurst dancing like a fly in jam, as he flicks through his toe-curling record collection. The gang on the beach in Lindisfarne for the millennium.

And who can forget David and Karen's break-up in Australia? Or the dwarf baby in bed with Adam and Rachel in this series. And then, of course, there's the buttocks. James Nesbitt's buttocks clasping a red rose. John Thomson's pink buttocks bouncing into a swimming pool. And James Nesbitt's white buttocks doing the same.