IF YOU are a bloke it’s probably best to make alternative arrangements for 9pm on Sunday evenings for the next few months.

Because any attempt to interrupt, make snarky remarks or otherwise distract from the magnificence that is Captain Ross Poldark could result in serious injuries involving rolling pins and frying pans.

But if you thought the reason why the nation’s women are already besotted with His Rossness is because he’s got muscles on his muscles and hair on his chest, then you are quite wrong.

Yes, he’s strong, brave, insanely good-looking and rocks a frock coat.

But it’s so much more than that. It’s because, with a few honourable exceptions, he’s the antithesis of virtually every bloke we see on the box these days, real or otherwise.

When he arrives home from the war, covered in scars and discovers the love of his life has married someone else it doesn’t faze him.

He just rolls up his sleeves, rips off his shirt (hurrah!) and gets to work with his pitchfork, determined to raise his fortunes and look after the little people on his crumbling estate.

Compare Ross to Christian Grey, the ghastly, sadistic hero of Fifty Shades fame. When Ross gets out his riding crop, it’s to deliver a sound thrashing to the brutes attacking a young girl, not to strike her with it.

When her father turns up spoiling for a fight after he rescues her to his manor house, Ross gives him one so epic they all end up shaking hands on it, like proper blokes should.

In a world that sometimes seems as if it’s filled with weak-chinned politicians, lying, thieving bankers, bearded hipsters, self-obsessed celebs, and wall-to-wall Russell Brand, Ross is a living beacon of hope.

In fact, if I was a betting woman I’d reckon the BBC screened this series now precisely because they knew what a contrast Captain Poldark would be compared to all about him.

Ross is no manbag-sporting, preening metrosexual. He’s no grubby-looking whinger. He’s no bickering, small-minded politician. He wouldn’t give tax relief to rich people at the expense of the poor. He wouldn’t bleat on about TV debates; he’d go out and take on the hecklers personally. And if he said he wouldn’t raise tuition fees for impecunious students, then he would eat his own tricorne rather than go back on his word.

He looks like he can darn a sock, skin a rabbit and mend a horse’s hoof. We already know he loves dogs by the way he saved Demelza’s and we know that when he marries her, he’ll look after her, too.

Since Mr Darcy decided to take THAT dip, about 20 years ago now, Ross is the man we’ve all been waiting for. And he is most definitely worth the wait!