Dog-eared

9:19am Thursday 17th April 2008

Inside The Medieval Mind (BBC4, 9pm); House (five, 9pm); Come Dine With Me (C4, 8pm);

DON'T moan the next time you're fined for failing to return your library book on time.

Just be glad you're not living in the Middle Ages when books were valuable and treasured.

Woe betide anyone who didn't return a borrowed book.

Medieval writings show what owners wanted to happen to such people - that the book would turn into a serpent and bite the thief, that he'd be struck with palsy in his limbs and languish in pain, or even be consumed in the flames of hell.

People whose job was copying books got fed up, noting their grievances in the margin.

"Very long, very verbose and very tedious"

was one comment - a charge that could be levelled at some TV programmes I could name.

A four-part series about "the variation in thought between the Middle Ages and the present day" might well fall into that category.

But Inside The Medieval Mind's presenter, Professor Robert Bartlett, has good tales to tell while the series is tricked out with lots of gloomy photography and visual gimmicks as he wanders around churches, old buildings and the seashore.

Behind all the strangeness, he asserts, is a world of passion and inquiry with scholarship, science, intellectual exploration and sophisticated logic. Not to mention the man with a dog's head and the fishman.

Medieval records are full of sightings of strange things. Like the servant from North Sunderland who met three young men dressed in green and riding green horses.

They carried him off to a lofty mansion where they ate bread and drank milk. Doesn't sound much like a good night out to me.

A race of dog-headed men is often mentioned in medieval texts and illustrations.

This posed a problem for missionaries - should they preach to them or take them walkies? The matter was resolved as these dogheads covered their genitalia. If they did that, scholars reasoned, they knew what decency was and must have a soul.

Records show that some adopted Christianity, one became a saint and another was featured on the cover of Medieval Hello! I made that last bit up, although the rumour is that St Christopher, the patron saint of travellers, was a bit of a dog.

THESE days Hugh Laurie's medic in House is considered pretty strange with his scornful approach to both fellow doctors and patients. Tonight, he's faced with a patient suffering from mirror syndrome which means he copies other people's diseases.

Being in hospital, he has plenty from which to choose.

House says that the man should be kept away from some sections of the staff in case he "picks up extreme bitch syndrome from one of the nurses".

He's just as rude to young medics, notably a Mormon whom House suggests is going to end up singing Osmonds' songs and proposing to five nurses at once.

How we love House and his rude manner.

He'd be fun as a dinner party guest, although hard pushed to match the shenanigans in Come Dine With Me. This is the series in which four strangers cook for each other, award the dinner parties points and the winner takes home £1,000.

This week, we're in Newcastle, where care manager Lee, who has a collection of 500 Barbie dolls, is preparing a James Bond themed dinner. Two bikini-clad friends spray themselves gold and serve cocktails. His starter is called Octopussy (deep fried calamari) but his From Russia Will Love desert, which should be a heart-shaped raspberry and passion fruit mousse, ends up looking like "a plate of vomit" according to guest Brenda.

This emerged as a theme. Rebecca's Moroccan- themed menu began with dips described as "looks a bit like sick but tastes nice".

Tory councillor Brian boasts of doing all his shopping at a low-cost supermarket. His culinary skills extend little further than opening tins and chopping onions.

His pudding called banana and orange surprise was a banana on a plate with a few tinned mandarins and squirty cream. It wins him few votes. The following day, Brenda takes great delight in telling fellow diners that she's been sick all night. So that was the surprise - being ill.

Editor's Choice