DASHING around on university open days with my youngest son, TV viewing this week has been under some pressure... if you don't count the Sky service from Cyprus offered to us by a Cypriot landlady in charge of an Oxford B&B.

So while I've been busy catching up on Mediterranean flower-arranging from a formidable-looking grandmother, my other half somewhat reluctantly assumed command of the remote control.

I'd asked her to tape Location, Location, Location (C4, Tuesday) because it featured a former army officer called Angie, now wheelchair-bound, from the Whitby area. The response I got back was a little like looking for a Celebrity Big Brother fan.

"Well, I fell asleep for the first ten minutes and when I started watching it, the programme was so dull it was hardly worth the effort," said the woman who, at one time, would never miss a homespun adventure featuring presenters Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer.

Sadly, the new goddesses are the wizened Dr Gillian McKeith of You Are What You Eat and Nicky Hambleton-Jones of 10 Years Younger (both C4, Wednesday).

As the hunched, high-heeled Doctor always makes me run off in search of a chocolate bar, I was a lot happier to see that York pub landlord Paul Turner was the subject of 10 Years Younger.

His confidence in Ms Hambleton-Jones might have been a little less high if he'd known she's a thrice-redundant management consultant who found her way into TV with the fashion website Tramp2Vamp.

However, Paul needed all the help he could get. The chain-smoking party animal was stunned to learn that 100 members of the York public thought he was around 43.

"I'd have said older. They've got their work cut out this week," chirped up my wife who was less than impressed when I guessed the poor chap was really 38 and he turned out to be 37.

The trouble with this programme is that it features close-ups of cosmetic surgery with me saying "uurggh, look at that" and my other half behind a cushion replying "do you have to tell me what's going on?"

This week the flabby skin above and below Paul's eyes was cut open and stretched back (mega-uurggh) and there were botox injections at around £200 a shot.

After a hair cut, the publican was given a new wardrobe and, as predictable as Judge John Deed sleeping with his ex-wife, he was informed his underwear needed to be boxer shorts to assist the low-cut trouser display.

"I think I see quite enough teenage boxer in this house," said my wife who felt that the man from York had ended up a little younger but a lot more effeminate thanks to 10 Years Younger.

Well, it might help him sell a few more exotic drinks. As for taping programmes, our roles are reversed on Mondays.

She's learning to snap on a photography course and I'm in charge of recording A Seaside Parish (BBC2, Monday).

The sad part of the Beeb holding back the story of Boscastle's floods last year is that the events have been overtaken by the Boxing Day tsunami and the plight of Carlisle.

That still doesn't get you off the hook with part of the half-hour programme at the end of one tape and the rest on another.

Published: 29/01/2005