Designing the Decades (BBC2); Heartbeat (ITV); The Real John Curry (C4)

IT'S hard to remember a time before mini skirts and beanbags and a decade when England could have lifted the World Cup - but that was the 1960s.

Designing the Decades is the latest in a long line of programmes cashing in on our love of nostalgia. The usual 'experts' and minor celebrities were brought together to give their insight into the impact new designs had then and are still having today.

It seems odd now that people got so excited about the invention of things like Tupperware - but to post-war Britain, keeping food fresh in a plastic container was revolutionary.

Sadly by dubbing the 60s as 'the most exciting, colourful era in English history' the programme makers were riding for a fall.

While it's easy to smile at vintage footage of the first Tupperware party or the opening of Habitat, it's slightly ridiculous to hear the likes of Mary Quant and Adam Faith getting excited about plastic stacking chairs and talking about the cultural effects of the Kenwood Chef.

There's no denying that design does have a lasting impact on our lives but this show led us to think everything made in the 60s was great and turned our lives around. However trying to equate paper furniture with man landing on the moon was a leap too far for any imagination.

There was more idolising the past in the new series of Heartbeat.

If you believe the Aidensfield slant on the 60s, all policemen were handsome and all crooks got caught.

In preparation for Jason Durr (PC Bradley) leaving the series amid unlikely rumours of him becoming the next James Bond, the producers have introduced another good-looking man to the village police force.

Step forward James Carlton (last seen in Emmerdale) as the over-eager new boy who bends the rules to catch the bad guy.

Of course, no dashing hero is complete without a damsel in distress so we were also introduced to the new village GP - a gorgeous young woman being harassed by a mystery ex.

It seems in Aidensfield that policeman and doctors are always drawn together, usually with tragic consequences (remember PC Rowan's heartache when his doctor wife Kate died from leukaemia) so there's bound to be a disaster around the corner.

But until then this was Heartbeat at its safest and best with just enough intrigue, bravery and romance to make us all wish we were all living in the swinging 60s.

While Heartbeat made us wish for 'the good old days' The Real John Curry showed how the past wasn't that great after all. Starting out in life as a real Billy Elliot, Curry was banned from learning to dance by his father who thought it was only for girls but he was allowed to take part in ice skating - a man's sport.

Curry went on to transform ice skating as the first man to dare to bring ballet moves onto the rink. Vilified and bullied for his choices he was eventually outed and fled to the US.

His career took off but he gained a reputation as a talented prima donna battling to get ice dancing accepted as an art. He returned to the UK in 1990 after contracting AIDS and died four years later having finally faced the British press and public whose prejudices had caused him to flee.

Curry's legacy lives on in ice dance as the inspiration for British champs Torvill and Dean and Robin Cousins but sadly stone-age prejudices robbed him of the true recognition he deserved when he was alive.