How appropriate that BBC Four chose to see out 2018 with Dr Hannah Fry, who’s just pipped to the title of ubiquitous television face of the year by Romesh Ranganathan. Her intonation may be becoming worryingly arch and Clarksonian (“fortunes can be won… or lost”, “We can’t forget about the other 29 per cent of the Earth’s surface – you know, the stuff we walk on”, and so on), but Fry has the popular touch and the expertise to back it up. Broadcasters who can make maths both comprehensible and interesting for the average viewer are to be cherished.

Her final documentary of the year, A Day in the Life of Earth extrapolated a typical 24 hours not in the life of its inhabitants, but of the planet itself – its rocks, its glaciers and its oceans – not eternal and immovable but constantly pulsating, shrinking and growing.

Fry was the fulcrum, explaining, contextualising and linking the clips from around the world as assorted scientists and explorers “made geology fun”. A day, we discovered, encompasses the creation of 72 cubic metres of lava, the transportation by air of half a ton of mud across the Atlantic and 55 tonnes of space dust is added to the Earth courtesy of meteorites burning up in the planet’s atmosphere. And this was just for starters.

The visuals helped it all slip down like a glass of bourbon, but the message was stark. The underlying impression was one of delicate balance, where forestry growth is managed by naturally occurring wildfires and oceanic erosion is precisely offset by volcanic lava creating new land. It was a humbling reminder of, on the one hand, our insignificance, and, on the other, our disproportionately damaging impact on the planet. A sobering but significant note on which to welcome in the New Year.