What did I learn from last night’s TV? Quite a lot, as it happens. From The Truth About Your Teeth (BBC1), that over-the-counter whitening products are a waste of money. Likewise electric toothbrushes, funny little inbetweener brushes, floss, tape, specialised toothpaste etc. All you really need is a manual toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste. Failing that, a carrot is good, both for your teeth and your breath.
But you’ve still got to pay for it. Look, he – Dr Chris van Tulleken – is walking off with one, from the greengrocer, stop thief! Unless it’s not him at all, but his identical twin brother Xand van Tulleken. Crime becomes a lot harder to pin on you when you’ve got an identical twin with identical DNA. Xand’s not even in this one (well they say he’s not). I thought they were a double act – it’s like a show presented by just Ant. Or Ant and someone else to be fair, because probably-Chris here has Jasmine Harman alongside him.
Anyway, it’s not about crime, it’s about crimes against dental care and oral hygiene, which we’re famously good at in this country. I learned that, unsurprisingly, 24 cans of energy drink a day is not good for your teeth; most of that energy goes into rotting them. And that if you knock a tooth out the best place to keep it until you can get to a dentist is in the hole it came out of; no superglue though, that’s not good. I learned that the dentist’s drill may soon be a thing of the past – “remineralisation” is the future. I like the sound of that. And that Simon Cowell has become part of the language of dentistry. As in, “I don’t want to go the full Simon Cowell, but I’d like them a bit whiter”.
From Britain’s Busiest Airport – Heathrow (ITV) I learned that, though this is hardly a new idea for television, it can still work, because a big airport is an endlessly fascinating place, full of good stories and interesting people. Like the air traffic controllers who can’t make the odd cock-up at work like the rest of us can; and the people who check the runways in between landing planes, quick! And a man who lives at the airport like in that movie; and a transatlantic blind date; and a plane spotter man and his wife who’s not interested in planes but comes along anyway (there’s something quite sweet about that, maybe she actually likes to be with him); and a cat lady whose cats don’t have the right visas; and a much bigger cat, a tiger, in transit and hungry, who wants – and gets – the chicken and the beef.
Almost as many animals as people pass through Heathrow, apparently, including 25 million fish … what, can that really be right, 25 million? The animal reception centre is known as the Ark. And the man who lives at the airport finds God there. See, there’s loads going on.
From Big Box Little Box (ITV) I learned that a bluetooth glove-phone is almost certainly not a good idea. Because – if you can figure out how to work it and make a call from your glove – people are just going to think you’re mad, you’re phoning from the gesture for phoning. I also learned that hybrid TV – this is clearly a mix of other shows nicked from other channels, Gogglebox, The Gadget Show/Gadget Man – can be successful. It’s fun.
Finally, in Dementiaville (Channel 4), I learned about a new approach to dementia practised at some care homes. Like this one, Poppy Lodge, in the Midlands. The staff go along with whatever it is the residents think is true. So if someone thinks he’s still a young man, with his marbles intact, and a job, and living parents, they might ask him if he’s had a good day at work, or how his dad is.
I can see it could be less stressful, for patients, for carers, for everyone, even if it is living a kind of lie. But the whole thing did make me worry about whether what I think is my own life is in fact reality. It is 2015, I have a job, and a young family, right? Or is it really 2055? And who are these people who keep asking how I am, and whether I want to join in the sing-song? No, I don’t, I’m busy, I’m a television critic, I’m writing my column, go away.
