(To the tune of ... well, it's rather obvious...)
Once on Royal David's sofa Feeling bloated, ah-ah-fter tea. Pondering what on earth to plump for out of all the choices on TV: Chistmas telly - once so ace now quite dull, a national disgrace.
Though tonight, I might well watch that programme on that Kinsey bloke. Dr Alf. You know, that guy who told Americans who they liked to poke: Meant to see the film last year never did - and never will, I fear.
Then of course, Without a Trace is always something to help pass the ev-en-ing. Bad Girls too - if that's your bag, their Christmas special might be just the thing: You may think there's nothing on But of course, you're factually wrong.
Christmas cheer is bursting from all channels and although there's really not much on, it's a trial to wade through all the choices - what to watch, it's hard to fix upon: Glad to help we here provide Monday's picks, a-taken from the Guide.
Chopra Town 9pm, BBC1 Private detective Vik Chopra gets into hot water -- with "hilarious consequences" (à la Jim Rockford) in this specially-created vehicle for Sanjeev Bhaskar. Here's the pilot -- and, probably, it should remain so, being the kind of hopelessly twee, ambling comedy-drama (dreaded phrase) the Beeb specifically commissions for those middle-Englanders who may still feel slightly uneasy about Ricky Gervais. Some picturesque scenes of south-east London, though.
Ali Catterall
Bad Girls: Christmas Special 9pm, ITV1 It's the nightmare before Christmas for the ladies of G-Wing. Mysterious new prisoner Miranda arrives in the dead of night and puts the willies up all and sundry. One of the Julies thinks Fenner is haunting the prison. All the lights go out, dead spooky like. Then the killing starts. Mwah ha ha ha. No one does camp like the Bad Girls. All this is lacking is Fenner himself, draped in sheetage and chains, groaning hammily and hurling ladles across the kitchen.
Julia Raeside
Dispatches: What's Really In Your Christmas Dinner 9pm, C4 Jane Moore exposé informing that Christmas lunch may not be the healthiest meal you're likely to eat -- a revelation unlikely to result in Britain echoing to exclamations of "Gadzooks!". There's unpleasant footage of the dreadful conditions endured by tablebound turkeys and commercially farmed salmon, discussion of fat levels with white-coated boffins, and examination of the reality behind food labelling.
Andrew Mueller
Buster Keaton Week From 12noon, Sky Cinema 1 This feels like the sort of thing BBC2 should be doing over the festive season. During this week, Sky will be broadcasting 36 of Keaton's classic shorts and features, including an early work with the ill-fated Fatty Arbuckle. There's a silent comedy deficit on TV nowadays but this will make up, as Keaton's mournfully deadpan features contrast with the superbly inventive slapstick and fast-cranked mayhem that is wrought around him. As with Chaplin, when it's not actually funny, it's almost balletic in its choreography -- check the famous scene in Steamboat Bill Jr, when the house front falls on top of him leaving him unscathed.
David Stubbs
Storyville: Kinsey 9pm, BBC4 Typically terrific Storyville documentary chronicling the life and work of Alfred Kinsey. Kinsey, an outwardly strait-laced academic, had a profound impact on the social history of the late 20th century. At a time when sex of any sort was barely discussed in America -- at a time, as his tireless research discovered, when people were serving prison sentences for committing oral and anal sex -- Kinsey not only talked and asked about it (without, miraculously, ever getting lynched), but wrote about it. His 1948 and 1953 studies of human sexuality, together known as The Kinsey Report, were among the most influential works of their time.
Andrew Mueller
Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World (Peter Weir, 2003) 9.45pm, Sky Movies 1 Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany star in this rollicking tale of life on board a 19th-century warship, that makes perfect winter night viewing. With a real eye for detail, throwing you from the violin-playing gentlemen's quarters down to the less-refined life below deck, it's an action film for adults, that really opens up a sense of the pace of life: the chase scene might take a day, but it's still utterly gripping.
Richard Vine
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I'm in the office for four more days, you know...
Yes, that's right, I don't like Christmas, and you're all going to suffer for it...
