The Line Of Beauty (BBC2); The Umbrella Assassin: Revealed (five): Those suffering from withdrawal symptoms following the end of The Apprentice will have been heartened to hear the name "Badger" mentioned in Alan Hollinghurst's The Line Of Beauty.

Alas, it wasn't Ruth but some Tory twit, instantly discarded by the narrative in Andrew Davies's adaptation of the award-winning novel.

The centre of attention is Nick (Dan Stevens), who arrives in London with a First in English to research Henry James at UCL. He's been invited to stay at the home of chum Toby, whose Tory MP father was elected in Mrs Thatcher's Tory landslide victory of 1983.

The family see Nick as someone they can trust to stay in the house while they're away for the summer. "You can look after the cat," they say, not meaning the moggy but Catherine, the troubled daughter who's on medication and into self-harm.

Nick isn't interested in pussy, preferring his own sex for recreational purposes. He has, he tells Cat, "not done Toby, we're just mates" and finds a friend through a personal ad. "It's a lovely night for it," says the dog-walker in the private park where he takes his date.

Indeed, if you went down to the woods that day you were sure of a big surprise involving trousers round ankles, a tube of lubricant and... well, I'll let you imagine it although the series didn't, preferring to depict it.

The Line Of Beauty is a beautifully-crafted and well-acted BBC drama, but lacking anyone you'd actually like to meet. Mrs T makes an appearance in a later episode and may well emerge as the most sympathetic character.

Five years earlier - in 1978 and in real life - a Bulgarian living in London, Georgi Markov, died in unusual circumstances.

He was killed by a poisoned brolly. While waiting for a bus, he felt something sting his leg and turned to see a man with an umbrella running away. He died three days later, the victim of a Cold War assassination.

It's the very stuff of James Bond movies. When the expert demonstrated how the lethal umbrella worked - the opening mechanism was a trigger - he might have been Q briefing 007.

The killer was never brought to justice but in Revealed, western journalist Jack Hamilton came pretty close to catching up with the prime suspect. He got a "no comment" from the British but the Bulgarian authorities were more open with a police investigator speaking to him.

The news wasn't good. Many documents concerning Markov had been destroyed and, even more alarming, the statute of limitations means if the case isn't solved by September 2008, it will be closed once and for all in Bulgaria.