Shameless has been transmitting on these shores for some time now, chronicling the weird, skuzzy, bloodshot world of Frank Gallagher and his ultra dysfunctional family and friends. Of course, it’s more than a mere piss-up and between the cracks in the paving stone lies some real heart.

It’s a much loved show, underlined by the fact that people have resorted to arguing about it being not as good as it used to be… yes it is… no it isn’t… yes is it… no it… you get the idea.

So brace yourself as you’re going to look at it through American eyes. Of course, this is always pretty weird. The Office took some getting used to when it went Stateside (and in some respects, is better than the UK equivalent). Will Shameless follow suit?The American version features all the same characters, but of course, they look a lot different to the UK residents of the Chatsworth Estate.

Frank Gallagher is played by William H. Macy who, in the American version, seems to retain a certain poshness in his voice. Maybe that’s just for the sake of being able to understand him in the trailer. We can only hope he nails the drawled garbling deliveries of David Threlfall.

Elsewhere, the cast is similarly attractive and ‘real’ looking and it’ll be really interesting to see how they are translated into an American setting.

The American take on Shameless premieres on January 9th (10pm ET/PT) and us Limey bastards will no doubt get to see it on Channel 4 or More 4 sometime after that.

Anyway. Watch the trailer and make your own mind up about it.

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Since the Red Hot Chili Peppers are probably the world's most overrated band, and Showtime's Californication is probably the world's most overrated TV show, you'd think the two would be happy bedfellows.

But that's not the case, no siree. The Red Hot Chili Peppers hate the David Duchovny show Californication because it shares its name with one of their singles and albums, although we forget which one. And so furious are the Red Hot Chili Peppers over the apparent theft of the Californication title that they're suing Showtime for it. That's bad news for Showtime, but we can understand why the Red Hot Chili Peppers did it – after all, if TV shows start stealing their names then it ultimately weakens their brand of drearily insipid identikit bass-solo loving white rich-boy MOR funk-rock that only people's dads really like if they're honest.

We feel for David Duchovny, we really do – The X-Files finished long ago, and yet the poor man is still typecast as a sort of alieny space boffin. Not even writing, directing and starring in a terrible film where Robin Williams plays an amusing disabled man could make the public see David Duchovny as a man who writes, directs and stars in terrible films where Robin Williams plays amusing disabled men instead of Fox Mulder.

So David Duchovny must have been thrilled when Californication was pitched to him – he'd get to play a failed novelist in boob-heavy faux-aspirational lifestyle comedy-drama that's so cloyingly self-satisfied that watching it is like wading through an ocean of congealed sperm on the planet Smug. Californication is the show that will stop David Duchovny being typecast because it's also the show that will stop David Duchovny getting cast.

Sadly, though, Californication is also the title of an eight-year-old Red Hot Chili Peppers album as well as being the title of one of the band's key singles – the one that they've endlessly rehashed for all of their subsequent singles. And, as anyone who knows anything about the Red Hot Chili Peppers knows, they don't like to be messed around with unless the messer wants a strongly-worded Fleamail entry written about them.

But for Californication to call itself Californication when it knew that there was a Red Hot Chili Peppers album called Californication is too much for even Fleamail to cope with. This, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have decided, is an issue that needs to be  solved with a lawsuit. That's why the band is suing Californication's broadcaster Showtime for unfair competition, dilution of the value of the name and unjust enrichment, and lead singer Anthony Kiedis said in a statement that:

"Californication is the signature CD, video and song of the band's career, and for some TV show to come along and steal our identity is not right."

However, the man who created the TV show Californication says that the Red Hot Chili Peppers didn't invent the term at all, and that it was used in an issue of Time magazine in 1972 to describe the plight of Oregon and Colorado locals worried about California's apparently haphazard expansion.

So who'll win this almighty battle between Californication and the Red Hot Chili Peppers? Personally we're not sure that a lawsuit is enough to sort this mess out – which is why we propose that the Red Hot Chili Peppers and everyone involved in producing Californication are packed into CERN's Large Hadron Collider and blasted into each other at the speed of light. There wouldn't be a traditional winner as such, but we'd still quite like to see it.