Timeshift: The Joy Of (Train) Sets – BBC4

“IT’S essentially a pointless pursuit,” admitted a model railway enthusiast, with an honesty the crochet community could learn a lot from. “It’s not going to put a meal on someone’s table or save someone’s life, but it might save someone’s sanity.” Essentially he was advocating that people with mental health issues be shored up in lofts with 15 miniature signal boxes and a representation of Bognor Regis Central circa 1930. It’s one of the lesser known changes the Coalition want to make to the National Health Service.

As Timeshift noted, “for more than a century many of us have been captured by this land of tiny detailed wagons and scaled down stations.” I myself had a penchant for model railways. Not so much the engines. More tying my sister’s dolls to the track.

The suggestion seemed to be that train sets were something dads bought themselves under the pretence of being a gift for their son. I did the same last Christmas when I gave my eldest a briar pipe and three tobacco pouches.

For many men, it’s a hobby that’s remained throughout their life. Pete Waterman was one such, although he admitted “you may go off it a bit when you find your wife”. Research shows few women enjoy gluing fake lichen on a platform on their wedding night.

Many were drawn to model steam trains by the shockingly exciting sight of the real thing. “It had steam issuing out from underneath,” recalled one chap. “You'd put your hand on it – it’d be quivering like a horse.” Whether he was talking about a steam train or Clare Balding was unclear.

The leader in the market was Frank Hornby. His catchphrase was “British toys for British boys”, a bit sexist but his range of cast iron ponies never caught on.

“He was very jolly and jovial,” noted a historian. “At Christmas parties everyone would have to rush upstairs to see his latest invention.” When they’d seen the replica cattle truck they shuffled back down again.

But tastes change and Hornby’s success wasn’t to last. “Children became more sophisticated,” we heard. “Model railways became the preserve of adults.” Even now they often give you Hornby vouchers when you buy a duffel coat.

Then, just as it seemed children would never touch a train set again, in 1985 a saviour arrived – Thomas. Not Cruise, that irritating kids’ series narrated by Ringo Starr in what was, I’m sure, in no way a comedown from The Beatles.

“Thomas has brought very small children into it with his little face and his loveable looks,” claimed an enthusiast.

Forget that. Just tell me one thing. What’s his scrap value?

Wild Things – C4

“NATURE,” says horticulturalist Chris Myers, “is on the move.”And he doesn’t mean Triffids.

“Wild plants, bushes, and trees have disappeared,” he continues, “and strange new plants have become familiar.” If he means that mildew on our shower curtain, that’s been there for years.

Wild Things tries to explain our country’s changing flora. Myers, for example, is concerned for the good old British bluebell. “It’s under threat from an invader,” he revealed, “the Spanish bluebell.” Whether the BNP’s aware of this influx is unclear.

“It looks the same,” explained Myers, “but with one key difference - the Spanish bluebell doesn't smell.” On the other hand it can more than hold its own with a pair of maracas.

Mirroring a Club 18-30 to Benidorm, the British and Spanish have started to breed. “The new hybrid bluebells have already started to infiltrate our woodland,” revealed Myers. “We stand to lose that unique scent forever.” It’s coming to something when you have to take a can of Glade on a walk.

Myers is an interesting new presence on our screens. He’s like Ray Mears only without the desire to create a shelter from moss.

“I like to mooch about in the countryside,” he says, “to see nature in the wild.” Which made his next statement even more bizarre. “This week we're in Birmingham,” he said. Surely the only wildlife to be found round there is flea infestations.

Myers was fascinated by the M6. “It may seem an unlikely starting point,” he said, “but in the last 50 years the roads have become Britain’s latest nature reserve.” Forget Martin Mere, take the family for an educational day out on the hard shoulder.

Charmingly named miniature flowering plant Danish scurvy grass – get your wife a bunch for Valentine’s Day - was what grabbed Myers. It’s found all along our motorways, its seeds transported by car wheels, and the presenter got straight in there. “It's not every day that you get to walk down the central reservation of the M6,” he said. No, makes you wonder why you waste so much time trailing round Dovedale and the Lake District.

Down on his hands and knees, he was much taken with the plant. It was just a shame about the lead poisoning.

“I came to Birmingham with a mind full of concrete and tarmac,” he admitted. “Not much room for animals and plants.” But he needn’t reproach himself. It’s understandable that people go to Birmingham harbouring negative thoughts. That way what you find there can only be a bonus.

Next week: The microscopic life of a D-road puddle.

World Without End – C4

IT’S a story of bawdiness, brutality, and promiscuity. A sort of 1300s What Happens In Kavos.

Ken Follett’s World Without End is wall to wall grunting. Although admittedly some of it’s ploughing.

Kingsbridge Cathedral is the scene of much groaning. If it’s not illicit couples making love in church confessionals, it’s the wounded from medieval bridge collapses. “The dead in the south transept,” ordered young medical student Caris, “the injured in the north.” Basically it’s Casualty without anaesthetic.

Caris took a pragmatic view on the accident, seeing it as a simple structural fault. Narcissistic monk

Godwyn, though, believed it the Lord’s work. “The punishment,”he opined, “is on Kingsbridge for becoming a haven for witches, whores, and filth.”If he’s right, I’d suggest the structural engineers of Wolverhampton check all bridges immediately.

Caris saw the collapse as proof the town needed a designated hospital. “We can't just leave people strewn across the cathedral floor,” she said. Certainly it’s not what you’d want if you’d got a wedding booked there.

“We need somewhere to put the injured,” she added. I can see the first 14^th century hospital soap coming on.

With building on a new bridge underway, Queen Isabella stormed into town with her chest on show. War chest that is – she’s about the only female character not to flash her other one.

The coffers were empty, and she didn’t want money wasted on vital improvements. Whether Follett’s an advisor to the Coalition I’m unsure.

“Kingsbridge can wither and die for all I care,” she told town tax collector, dishevelled knight Roland, a man who doesn’t so much look like he’s been dragged through a bush as spent the past 15 years living in one,“but I will have my taxes.” They say George Osborne’s got a poster of her on his bedroom wall.

Roland sent Ralph, evil Lord of Wigleigh, to tell the bridge builders to stop, although there was no small amount of anger at the news. “****the Queen,” said one. It’s fair to assume he wasn’t a collector of Jubilee tea towels.

Ralph rewarded this outburst by removing his arm with a sword. It sounds tough but I can’t help feeling it’d work better than the anti-social behaviour order.

Blood-spattered, he returned to Roland to tell him the work had stopped. “Now there's a man who knows how to take an order,” noted Roland. And certainly having him round would speed up productivity in most offices.

Roland’s upbeat mood was stymied, however, when he found his wife had been one of the Kingsbridge groaners – and he wasn’t the cause.

That’s what you get for letting yourself go. What Roland needs is a medieval Gok Wan.

Great Northern Cookbook – Five

“NORTHERN grub is my passion,” claims former Coronation Street actor Sean Wilson. Although since he isn’t morbidly obese, I’m not entirely sure I believe him.

“I like to think I know everything there is to know about it,” he adds. Again, I’d question this statement. At no point of this lard-laden series have I seen anyone mop up their excess gravy with a slice of white bread.

Northern dishes, claims Wilson, “is proper food for proper people.” When he says ‘proper people’, he means those with blocked arteries.

This week, he started by cooking up a pork loin dinner for a group of civic dignitaries travelling from Crewe to North Yorkshire on steam train the Scarborough Flyer.

There was conjecture among the passengers as to whether he was up to the task. “Can he cook?” pondered one. “A lot of people spend 20 or 30 years getting to this standard of cooking.” But enough of Bernard Matthews.

Certainly conditions weren’t ideal. “I’m starting to realise that preparing a full roast dinner at high speed in a tiny kitchen is a massively ambitious plan.” My wife said something similar when I asked her to cook something while travelling down the M5 ready for when we arrived at the caravan site.

He was having particular trouble with his cheesecake. It hadn’t quite set and had sheets of gelatine in it. On the plus-side there was no horsemeat.

“This is every chef’s worst nightmare,” said Wilson, “turning out a meal that people refuse to eat.” And you’d have to say if this is the stuff Gail was serving up on a daily basis, no wonder he left Coronation Street.

Crewe Mayor Margaret Martin did her best to be diplomatic but couldn’t help mention the cheesecake’s presentation woes. I’m not saying it was a mess, but it looked like the Vienetta factory had exploded.

Wilson tried to defend himself. “The presentation was difficult,” he explained, “because we were doing 75mph at the time.” They’re doing 570 in a jumbo jet, mate, and they seem to manage.

In fact it wasn’t a great journey all round for Wilson. After Scarborough he headed for Blackpool to revive interest in an old northern favourite. Not Stan Boardman, black pudding.

“A mix of pigs’ blood, fat, herbs and spices,” he said, “it’s been made to recipes that have changed very little since medieval times.” Sorry, mate, you’re just not selling it to me.

He reintroduced it to the breakfast table of a B&B, but the guests sent it back. Great Northern Cookbook was possibly the least successful celebrity chef tie-up since the Galloping Gourmet got involved with Tesco.

The Food Inspectors – BBC1 Jan 17

“EVERY year,” says Chris Hollins, “more than a million people get ill because of the food they eat.” It’s all that’s stemming the obesity epidemic.

The problem’s predominantly down to hygiene. “You can't have a rabbit where you’re preparing food,” health inspector Mandy Cartwright told the owner of one Chinese takeaway. And certainly not sitting on your shoulder.

Mandy is known in the trade as “clean up or close down Cartwright”. When she’s finished with food inspecting she’s moving on to post-watershed Channel 4.

Her job is to prevent issues affecting restaurants. “Some of the symptoms are horrifying,” reported Hollins, “amnesia, paralysis, diarrohea.”And that’s just from sitting next to someone you don’t like very much.

Sadly there are those in the trade who will always take risks. “Food business is big business,” said Hollins, “and can attract people who cut corners.” On the plus-side, if the dead rat’s under the sink then at least it’s not in your meal.

“Dinner can be dangerous,” he added. “Ten germs can multiply to a thousand in just six hours.” And all at no extra charge.

Hollins is a strange choice for a programme like this. He used to present the sports news on BBC Breakfast and then won Strictly. How that makes him perfect for The Food Inspectors I’m not sure. It’s like asking Louis Smith to present How Clean Is Your House?.

Nevertheless, he ploughed on, visiting Linda, a woman who enjoyed her animals. “She’s got a horse, a pony, and a cat,” we heard, “and she treats them like family.” I’m hoping they don’t share a hot-tub.

“Mucking out,” Hollins enquired, “do you enjoy that?” “Oh yes,” enthused Linda. Give her a call if there’s some manure needs shifting.

While the stables were spotless, the same couldn’t be said for Linda’s kitchen. “You can see there’s a complete jungle of different flies,” noted an inspector. “Dead daddy-longlegs, fruit flies, shield bugs.” The good news is that a fruit fly counts as one of your five a day.

No wonder then that Linda’s daughter Faye had refused to let her little girl eat there. “If I go,” she revealed, “I’ll take a packed lunch because her kitchen’s not clean.” It’s a ploy worth thinking about if you hate cooking for visitors.

Linda was made to see the light, and Faye now happily eats at her mum’s house. That she wears a boiler suit and a gas mask is just a coincidence.

But it’s worth remembering the programme’s central message - “where there’s pets there's poo”. Don’t keep your stick insect in the bread bin.

TV review - Utopia - C4

Wed tv rev jan 16

Utopia – C4

I’VE long thought online forums are a dangerous business. Who knows who’s watching you? Tracking your every post. It’s one reason I quit Mumsnet.

I’m not saying Channel 4’s new thriller’s dark, but you’d have more fun reading a blog by a mortuary assistant. It reveals what can happen when an internet community gets horribly out of its depth. Like when ‘The Bunty online’ waded into the debate about the Arab spring.

The forum members were obsessed by cult graphic novel The Utopia Experiments, “about a scientist who makes a deal with the devil for knowledge”. It makes you wonder if Beelzebub isn’t really responsible for the Dyson vacuum cleaner.

Four online strangers had agreed to meet after one had gained possession of the holy grail of geekdom. Not a Betamax video of Robot Wars, The Utopia Experiments’ original manuscript.

Except a mean and merciless duo, henchmen of the mysterious Network, were on their trail. Cameron and Clegg I think they were called.

They’d already bludgeoned the owner of a specialist graphic novel bookshop to death. Horribly undeserving. Graphic novel bookshops don’t even sell Jeffrey Archer.

Everyone who encountered them was asked the same question,“Who is Jessica Hyde?”. I can’t help feeling it would have been a whole lot quicker to do a Facebook search.

Those who failed to answer suffered a bloody fate. One chap was pushed from a tower block. Another had his eyes gouged. It was an interview technique they’d learnt from Jeremy Paxman.

Unusually named forum member Wilson Wilson had mistakenly believed he could never be found. “In the past five years I’ve wiped all traces of me from the world,” he told his cyber-pals. “No bank account, no bills, driving licence, nothing - I'm invisible.” Although the Readers’ Digest had still managed to send him his free prize draw numbers.

Wilson had no fear of being captured by nefarious forces.“I can pick locks,” he said, “and if I'm chained to a radiator I can escape by dislocating both my thumbs.” If he’d not been anonymous he could have got himself a Saturday evening TV show.

Sadly he had no answer for a head clamp. And it was thus that, in scenes reminiscent of the Earl of Gloucester ‘out, vile jelly!’ eye extraction sequence in King Lear – a theatrical event which forever put me off pickled eggs – he suffered the ultimate optical unpleasantness.

He did, however, later manage to flee with the remaining two forum members. Cowering indoors, they were perturbed to hear a knock at the door. It was a woman. “I’m Jessica Hyde,” she said.

tv review – mon jan 14

Woodhouse – tv review – mon jan 14

Dancing On Ice – ITV1

DANCING On Ice looks a little tame now ITV has started launching celebrities off 10-metre diving boards on Saturday nights. Maybe next year they could cut their losses and combine the two. I’m thinking Celebrity Ski-Jumping. Instead of Splash!, Thud!. Certainly they’d guarantee my patronage if they could promise to fire Chris Moyles down a slope into a frozen waste at 60 miles an hour.

The show got off to an inauspicious start last week. Pamela Anderson was forced to re-evaluate her definition of ‘career low’ – previously when she was attacked by a killer prawn in Baywatch - as she lost to Keith Chegwin in a skate-off. Adding insult to injury, not only did Chegwin perform better but he has a superior bust.

Week one and the show had lost its only A-list star. On the plus-side Joe Pasquale was still in there.

This week saw Anthea Turner take to the ice. She’s been practising for three months and I’ve been disappointed not to see her dazzling the crowds with a triple salco the last couple of times I’ve taken the kids to the skating rink at Uttoxeter.

“If Pamela Anderson can go out in week one,” noted Anthea, “then anything can happen.” True. Although I’m not holding my breath for Cheggers to make the Olympics.

Anthea was kept sweating backstage. Rugby star Gareth Thomas, Pasquale, boxer Luke Campbell, even Oona King, went before. “Who’d have thought we’d have a member of the House of Lords on Dancing On Ice?” said commentator Tony Gubba. Although if they were determined to lure a member of the upper chamber on to the show, surely they should have thrown some cash at Norman Tebbit.

“Have we saved the best til last?” wondered Christine Bleakley, as Anthea’s big moment neared. “I don’t know about that,” replied Anthea, “but I’m going to try and polish that ice.” I’ve an idea she thought it was curling.

“If I’m doing something, “ she said, “I want to do it well. I am competitive. I have to come up trumps.”

Gubba was certainly impressed her routine. “A half drape, followed by a cradle, push-me-pull- me, then a back roll-up.” Why he was reading a homeware catalogue I’m unsure.

And the judges too were pleased with what they saw. Although Jason Gardiner clearly never used to watch Blue Peter. “Is it Anthea?”he asked woundingly before delivering his verdict.

Having established her identity, Gardiner was generous, with reservations. “You looked beautiful out there,” he said. “What I’d like is for you to unfurl a little bit more.”

She’s a TV presenter, mate. Not a carpet.