Barking mad

Few TV programme titles strike terror in the heart quite so much as Bernard Manning: From Beyond The Grave. They say you shouldn't speak ill of the dead but, quite honestly, that seems the best time as you can do so without (a) fear of them answering back or (b) taking legal action.

Was Manning - who died in June but won't go quietly if this show is anything to go by - "a much-loved comedian or a racist bigot?" as the programme asks.

The answer is very much a matter of taste. Manning is still insisting to the end of this TV epitaph that "I've done nowt wrong". For him, he'd have us believe, a joke is a joke and nothing more.

What he forgets is that times have changed and a comedian isn't so much judged by whether he's funny as whether he's politically correct. And Manning certainly wasn't correct, being accused of racism, sexism and any other ism you'd care to name.

This obituary isn't so much a plea for understanding but an opportunity for him to tell us that "It's just a joke".

If anyone's expecting an apology from him, they're in for a disappointment. Facing death at 77 - and he knew that his collection of illnesses meant he didn't have long to go - he's totally unrepentent.

Arguing about so-called unPC humour with alternative comedian Arnold Brown, he claims that people criticise him because they're jealous as they don't have his talent.

"You can't tell me anything, you're an effing nobody. I've worked the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, all over the country, Royal Variety Performance...," Manning tells him.

Similarly his run-in with Mrs Merton on her TV chat show, when she asked if he was a racist and he replied "yes", is dismissed with the comment that people will remember Bernard Manning, but "who'll remember Mrs Merton?". A lot of people actually, but there's no telling him that.

He had a message for those who'd be glad when he was dead. "They say they're going to dance on my grave, but that's OK because I'm going to be buried at sea," he says.

His manager wouldn't say he was a racist, but his biographer would. When a car in which Manning is travelling overtakes another, he notes there are "a lot of foreigners" in the other vehicle. It's difficult to know whether he means it insultingly or is just playing up to his image.

Saying that he's someone who grew up when "fat, white men were the masters of the world" doesn't excuse his hateful comments. On the plus side, it's good to hear that even an old hand like Manning can't resist an obvious joke when he visits the crematorium where his funeral will take place. "This will be the only time I have died a death," he jokes.

Bruce Forsyth has become a successful entertainer without resorting to dodgy jokes. He features briefly in It's Me Or The Dog as his daughter Debbie is the owner of the troublesome pooches.

Yorkies Gizmo and Widget have changed since they were dognapped from her car last year. They were recovered after she and Brucie appealed on GMTV, but now these previously well-behaved dogs bark at anything that moves - dogs in the street, strangers at the door and even people passing the house.

Debbie is living with the blinds shut and hardly dares take the dogs for a walk. She's even considering moving to Spain to overcome the problem.

Enter canine supernanny Victoria Stilwell. If she told me to "Sit" , I'd do it immediately. She's scary in a dominatrix sort of way. She decides that the dogs weren't the real problem. It's Debbie, who was reinforcing their anxiety.

Step one is for Debbie to loosen up. Victoria presents her with a punchbag to "represent the scum who stole your dogs" and instructs her to give it a good bashing.

The barking dogs are handled more easily. One word from Victoria and they do exactly as they're told. If only they'd let Victoria Stilwell have a few training sessions with Bernard Manning, the world might have been a happier, more politically correct place.