Writing in the journal Nature, Forester described how he fought hours of tedium whilst filming his prey’s seemingly imperceptible movements. ‘Lying on the living room floor for hours on end with your arm hooked around the back of the telly isn’t exactly everyone’s idea of fun,’ he admitted, ‘but luckily the latest Harry Potter film was on Sky Box Office and if I cricked my neck enough I could see most of the screen.’

Forester’s ground breaking work in lifting the veil on this little-known realm will feature in a major new BBC documentary series, Hidden World. The series will show for the first time how a swarm of cables’ ever-changing social dynamic causes their originally neat and straight migration routes to slowly evolve into an impenetrable tangle of competing wires.

‘In one particularly dramatic scene, the dominant SCART lead is challenged by the arrival of a new HDMI cable from a Blu-Ray player,’ Forester reveals. ‘Despite being laid neatly to one side, several inches away from the swarm, within days it’s hanging from the extension lead, knotted in a half clove hitch. Meanwhile the now banished SCART lays forlorn and unplugged next to a pile of old VHS tapes.’

Thanks to a fortuitous accident, the documentary will also show similar occurrences behind a computer desk, after Forester’s webcam fell off his screen and down the back of his PC. ‘For years we thought that keyboard cables ruled the roost in that particular ecosystem, but now we have conclusive proof that it’s the mouse that roars when it comes to getting tangled up.’

Hidden World will hit our screens later this year and, in a move designed to promote the BBC’s free-to-air high definition service, will be available in HD on Freeview. ‘Viewers will be able to watch the secret world of the television cable in crystal-clear resolution,’ announced a BBC spokesman, ‘assuming they can work out how to connect the new set-top box of course.’

Arthur Wilson, 83, admitted he was more surprised than anyone at what happened. ‘I thought I was warming up my cocoa in the microwave at the time’, he explained. ‘I was staring at this fancy glass box and pressing all the buttons and suddenly there’s all this fuss that I’ve managed something amazing.’

Malcolm Stonebridge, owner of the nursing home said, ‘It came as a great surprise to all the staff when Arthur managed to navigate his way through the Videoplus, delay start and long play/short play options and successfully tape a re-run of ‘Last of the Summer Wine’. Previously the nursing home has normally had to wait until they get a 16 year old on work experience before any of the residents’ electronic equipment operates correctly. ‘Just last year, one of the young lads managed to upgrade the pacemaker of a bedridden 94 year old widow via his bluetooth mobile. Two weeks later, she was giving step aerobics classes at the local gym.’

Mr Wilson appeared as bemused as anyone by his success; ‘I was looking around for where I had put my cocoa and suddenly I saw Clegg and Compo disappearing down a steep hill in a tin bath,’ he chuckled.

However one of the elderly lady residents claimed that the clichéd techno-phobia of all the old men was part of an elaborate cover up. ‘All the old fellahs just pretend not to know how to use all the electrical equipment so the staff have no idea that they are recording ‘Wet Dream Team’ off the Adult Channel. Once ‘Bonercam’ is on, they know how to use the rewind and fast-forward buttons all right.’

An apparently confused Mr Wilson denied this and added that the nursing home computer must have accidentally downloaded video clips from www.chickswithdicks.com while he was attempting to look at what he thought was the tropical fish tank.