There’s that old saying, used in a song by Craig David, you don’t miss your water till the well runs dry. Lately, however, I’ve been thinking that maybe you don’t miss your Rossy when he’s on enforced sabbatical. I’ve been an enthusiastic fan of Jonathan Ross through thick and thin – and we aren’t just talking waistlines here – for over 20 years and when he went off the air for something that even Osama Bin Laden must know about by now I was sorry that he was gone. Radio 2 on Saturday mornings was a bit grim. Friday nights on BBC1 wasn’t the same.

And yet. And yet. I’ve been getting on with my life and nothing much seems to have changed. I’m not more gloomy, I’m not more happy. In fact there are positives. I get more things done on Saturday mornings because I don’t have a reason to have an extended breakfast and I’m not so bothered about staying in on Friday nights or remembering to spark up the old recorder if I go out.

This all came to mind when I saw a copy of yesterday’s Guardian with a picture of Ross on the front. He has apparently designed some charity wrapping paper. Not quite in the same league as former minister John Profumo cleaning toilets after resigning from Parliament in the sixties, but then Ross’s behaviour wasn’t on a par with the government-rocking Profumo scandal – and I can’t see them making a film out of Sachsgate in twenty-five years.

Anyway, I digress. It was funny seeing Ross in the paper. And even funnier to think that I hadn’t given any recent thought to someone whose profile was so prominent a couple of months ago. It is going to be weird when Ross comes back in 2009 – the BBC will be unlikely to hype it up given the reasons for his absence, but on the other hand it will be a big deal. The whole matter has made me wonder about a lot of things to do with the nature of modern celebrity in general and how Ross feels at the moment, being out of the limelight.

This modern version of limbo is going to be particularly odd on Saturday night when the British Comedy Awards is broadcast. It is an event Ross has always hosted until this year and he is up for an award himself. It is usually an irreverent affair, so will replacement Angus Deayton be commenting on Sachsgate, or will he be tight-lipped about the elephant in the room? Will Ross be there? This is a really odd one. Would Ross like to be the butt of a Deayton dig or would he rather they kept quiet? It all brings to mind another famous saying, this one by Oscar Wilde rather than Craig David: “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about. And that’s not being talked about.”