The amazing Gary and his stretchy ski n

Gary Turner doesn't have a problem when he wants to put down the pint of beer he's holding. He grips the skin on his stomach and puts it out to form a makeshift shelf on which to stand the glass.

And he has no need of a scarf around his face to keep out the cold. He simply pulls his neck skin up over his mouth.

No wonder the audience looked astonished. I certainly did, not at the amazing versatility of Gary and his stretchy skin but at the five executives who commissioned a programme in which "ordinary members of the public do extraordinary things".

We also saw a Peter Dowdswell and his sons eat a family meal - baked beans, sausage and mash, ice cream - in under a minute and a half. I turned off before Britain's bendiest woman and loudest burper appeared but not, unfortunately, before Luigi cut a jelly in half with a cardboard chainsaw while making whirring noises.

Des O'Connor demonstrated an unusual talent on Today With Des and Mel, daytime TV's latest daily chat show. He showed what a little bleeder he was when, halfway through the show, a shaving cut began bleeding again. Poor old Des sat there, mopping up the blood with a hankie.

Des in his previous incarnation as a talk show host in the evening was watchable enough, once you got over the air of showbiz bonhomie and false mateyness of the situation.

Here he's forced to make small talk with co-presenter Melanie Sykes, who isn't one of life's natural chat show hosts, and also tell appalling jokes that would have him booed off stage in a live performance. Informed of a woman with a record-breaking 69 children, he declared that she'd set another record too - "the only woman never to have a headache".

This being a chat show, guests were required although the rollcall of comedian Tim Vine, actress Belinda Lang and entertainer Norman Pace showed that good ones are difficult to find.

Someone also thought it a good idea to interact with viewers, by getting them to call and confess their sins. How we all laughed at the major confession from a woman who dropped a relative's false teeth down the toilet. Not so much House Of Astonishment as House Of Embarrassment.