JANE FRYER'S View From the Sofa: So much madness on offer you need a split-screen telly

Can it really be just six weeks since Rishi announced his kamikaze snap election in a torrential rainstorm with D:Ream's Things Can Only Get Better drowning out his words?

It hardly seems possible but, here we are, sitting on the sofa, staring slack-jawed at the exit poll, which promises total devastation for the Tories .

And clearly it comes as quite a shock to Kay Burley and crew at Sky News who, when they see the figures, seem only able to make what sound like gasping sex noises on their microphones. 'OOH. Ooh. Oh my god. Oo, oo ooooooh.'

GB News doesn't fare much better. Lord knows how, but somehow they manage to switch the Labour and Conservative results to announce a Tory landslide.

So I flick to Channel 4 's much-advertised Britain Decides, hosted by Krishnan Guru-Murthy and Emily Maitlis, with guests including Nadine Dorries (in powder pink), in a very colourful, brightly lit studio.

All week, Guru-Murthy has been telling anyone who'll listen how he's dreamt of anchoring the election coverage, a la David Dimbleby , ever since he watched the 1979 election as a boy.

And here he is, promising a show with its own manifesto of 'drama, results and the best analysis' from a cast of unrivalled expert guests.

No wonder he looks like the cat that got the cream. Though, arguably, it's hard to imagine Dimbleby's expert commentators including the cast of Gogglebox, the newly anointed Baroness Harman (in pink, again) Kwasi Kwarteng, Ann Widdecombe (in pinky purple), along with Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart, that smug duo from The Rest Is Politics podcast.

But it's lively and bouncy and, to begin with, there's a lot to entertain, what with Alastair Campbell being as rude as ever: 'If you want to sit here all night and talk rubbish and parrot away, Nadine...'

And Dorries, in return, accusing him of being sexist and Kwasi of being patronising, arguing with everyone, continuing to defend her beloved Boris and insisting that Labour MPs will be disappointed with their gigantic, enormous, landslide victory.

Usually, on election night, there's so much desperate filling of the long, dead hours between exit poll and the first big results – by pundits, statisticians, Jeremy Vine with his silly swing-o-meter – that you could happily set your alarm for 2.30am and miss nothing.

But tonight there's so much madness on offer you need one of those new split-screen tellies.

So you can watch the Channel 4 gang bicker on and on. And count how many times Campbell mentions his podcast.

But also admire Tom Bradby striding about the ITV studio in his beautiful suit – almost as crisply tailored as Clive Myrie's over on the Beeb. And note that his crew of experts includes a very fit-looking George Osborne, a very fat-looking Ed Balls and a very small Nicola Sturgeon, all of whom – unlike the mad Channel 4 lot – wait politely for each other to finish speaking instead of just hurling insults.

And then pop over to the BBC to wonder why on earth Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC's first female election anchor, has been given a Barbie disco makeover in powder pink (again!) and sequins. And realise that, for all his faults, Huw Edwards was better at this than anyone else on the planet.

The only people who seem a bit adrift are the statisticians. Spare a thought for poor old Professor Sir John Curtice, who has lived and breathed election data ever since he was allowed to stay up late and watch the 1964 election and mentions the word psephology almost as often as he breathes.

Because no one really cares about the possible finer nuances of data when a massive landslide is on the way. And why bother with Jeremy Vine's endless light-up charts when we already know the results?

Particularly not when there are so many massive moments to hoover up. Angela Rayner standing in the rain and, oh so valiantly, trying – and then failing – to control her massive smile.

Wes Streeting's extraordinarily bad interview on the BBC, in which he uses so many seafaring metaphors – sails, shipshape, vessels and shipwrecks – that by the end of it we all feel quite seasick.

Kwasi clearly enjoying it as Dorries and Harman slug it out on either side of him. And Lord Rees-Mogg, sitting in his Somerset pile, flanked by pictures of Thatcher and Churchill, for once in his life wearing a suit that fits.

But most of all, watching the political landscape shift beneath our feet and, as the counts start to roll in, to see not just a sea of red, but the Reform Party emerging as a huge, scary new power to be reckoned with.