'DON'T shoot the piano player," they often plead in westerns. Well I'm not so sure. My wife's piano lessons have reached a crisis-point, so she tells me - although why a cheerful little tune like Merrily We Roll Along should cause such misery remains a mystery. "I've got to stop looking down at my hands or I can't progress," she wailed. My suggestion that she might try glancing at them from the next room didn't go down too well.

I only throw in this scene-setter to explain why my resident paint chart collector and doyen of DIY SOS, Changing Rooms, House Doctor and all things property-inspired decided to opt out of The Block (ITV1, Tuesday). For all those who prefer tickling the ivories to tarting up properties in Brighton, this is supposed to be a race between four couples to get the best price over £300,000 at auction for each of a row of homes. The programme-makers spent ages giving the pairs an identical shell and then allowed the two most obnoxious couples - Marinella and Steve and ex-Bond girl Helen and Tim - to steal all the tools instead of supplying a starter pack and tool hire budget.

The viewing public are painted into the picture by being offered the chance to win one of these over-priced houses. And I can't say I wasn't tempted. Fortunately the pianist paid a fleeting visit and informed me:

"This is pathetic, how many people have a £25,000 budget for doing up a home. All they have to do is use neutral colours and a basic design and they'll make money. Why can't we have a chocolate-box series on instead."

The celebration of those nearing retirement age (currently 60-65, but likely to be 70-80 quite soon) on BBC2's Time Of Your Life strand seemed to be offering the answer in When I'm 64 (BBC2, Tuesday). But the unlikely friendship between ageing cabbie and football hooligan Ray (Paul Freeman) and retiring Mr Chips schoolmaster Jim (Alun Armstrong) went from amusing to sexual relationship. The rest of the drama lost at least one viewer at this point and was then accompanied by the strains of Merrily We Roll Along with the more testing title for the mature pianist of Old Woman to come. "Why couldn't they just be friends, why does everything on TV have to involve people getting beaten up, shootings, stabbings and controversial sex?" complained the pianist. The trouble with continually pushing back the barriers on TV is that broadcasters are ignoring the average, white heterosexual majority in favour of critical acclaim and cult status. In TV terms, primetime and entertainment are not one and the same.

If this keeps up I think my other half is well on the way to becoming the next Richard Clayderman, although he has the longer hair. Mind you, there are dark murmurings about major refurbishments in the dining room because it doesn't fit in with her piano.

Published: ??/??/2004