Ah, how I sometimes long for the 1980s - when four channels were more than most could handle, and home makeover shows on TV were but a speck in someone's eye, like grit or something.
It seemed like you could do anything, then - and in my family, it seemed like you probably should as the presence of nuclear weapons in the world meant we were all going to die very, very soon. There seemed nothing much we could do about it, so, like people reshuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic, we would redecorate. Constantly. Me, with crayons and stickers and pictures of Five Star, my sister with photos and posters of U2, and my brother with old socks and dead insects.
I was reminded of this when I killed an infesting bug with my TV guide the other day. The tiny red explosion it left on the paintwork was something of great beauty - Hirst-esque. I wondered, briefly, if it might be possible to decorate a whole room like this. And then realised that it probably wasn't, not really, unless you were very patient or were willing to smother your dwellings in jam, first, which could perhaps be the only negative in an otherwise overwhelmingly positive and creative plan. Oh, but then there's the whole karmic/Jainist angle. And the fact that though they might be at first glance gorgeous, your walls would essentially be covered in jam and bugjuice. I should probably think this through. Still - I saw that the House Doctor was starting her new series tonight and, as always, I'm here to help. So if you're reading, Ann Maurice, please feel welcome to appropriate any of my ideas. It's the least I can do after the joy you've given us all.
To help the rest - particularly those of us who might be bereft of a copy of the TV listings, due to insects - here as always are the picks of tonight's TV, taken from this week's Guide...
House Doctor: Inside And Out 8pm, Five The new series kicks of with cheesy American Ann Maurice kicking a couple of London scumbags' butts. Harley, a former "model" and his lovely, but put-upon wife live in a complete pigsty. The decor is like a teenage boy's bedroom -- guns, army target practice pictures for a bedhead, insects on the walls -- and they wonder why the place hasn't sold for half a million. Funny to this point. AM then gets on with the (yawn) job of whitewashing and dull as dishwater Sven sorts the garden. Little you haven't seen before apart from the couple's exceptionally bad taste, which is worth 20 minutes of anyone's time.
Danielle Proud
The Lost World Of Friese-Greene 9pm, BBC2 In the mid-1920s, partly as a way of demonstrating his wares to the nascent Hollywood movie industry, colour film pioneer Claude Friese-Greene embarked on a Vauxhall D-type-powered journey from Land's End to John O'Groats. Along the way, he recorded scenes of everyday life in Britain. Retracing Friese-Greene's journey in a three-part series, Dan Cruickshank meets those captured on film when they were children. The first part visits the West Country.
Jonathan Wright
The Forgotten Fan: A Tonight Special 9.45pm, ITV1 Teenager Michael Shields is currently serving 15 years in Bulgaria for attempted murder. His conviction was for an attack on a barman at the Black Sea resort of Golden Sands. But how safe was that conviction? Shields claims he was asleep in his hotel room at the time of the assault, while another man, 20-year-old Anfield electrician Graham Sankey, has issued a "confession" to the attack. A British detective re-examines the evidence against Shields, a Liverpool fan who was holidaying in Bulgaria.
Jonathan Wright
The True Voice Of Murder 9pm, More4 This was never going to be a barrel of laughs -- it's three monologues delivered by actors performing the testimonies of people affected by murder, whether they were related to a victim, or were themselves a killer. However, it's depressing for reasons the makers probably didn't intend. The stories do have a power rooted in their vérité, but ramble in the way that conversation does, and the acting is uneven. That said, Anne Reid's superb turn as a long-abused wife serving a life sentence for dispatching her ghastly husband to the hereafter is worth the effort.
Andrew Mueller
Thief 10pm, Sky One A pre-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans provides the backdrop for this gritty six-part heist drama. It stars Homicide: Life On The Streets' Andre Braugher (Detective Frank Pembleton) as veteran blagger Nick Atwater, whose six-man crew attempt to nab $40 million from the US government, which has been earmarked for waging war on South American coke barons. Atwater is bedevilled by the fraught relationship with his stepdaughter, the killing of a bent NOPD officer who helped them set up the job, and is being pursued by the Chinese mafia. This race is undoubtedly on.
Joss Hutton
Man's Work 10pm, Bravo A keynote feature, this new series, of Bravo's recent makeover. Ashley Hames can boast on his CV that he was the original News Bunny on Live TV. Here, however, he's managed somehow to step out of the shadow of that formidable legacy, presenting a new series in which he endeavours to convert himself from "wimp to warrior", taking on a host of manly tasks including putting out bushfires and arresting Colombian drug dealers. How the latter will work gosh only knows but you've two options of finding out, as this show will also be available as a free download.
David Stubbs
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And then of course, for the trash-lovers among you, there's the second episode of reality show The Starlet (Living TV, 8pm), a reality show in which an enormous cloud of beautiful but essentially vapid young actresses hover around the very outskirts of talent, while a shrinkwrapped Faye Dunaway waits for the perfect moment to swat them, painfully but entirely justifiably, against the wall. It's super.
