Mike Ward is the man with the remote (Image: Daily Express)
Help! I Bought it at Auction with Sarah Beeny, Channel 4, 8pm
My toilet seat is driving me nuts. Or, rather, my toilet “seats”, plural. Honestly, these things are useless. They barely last five minutes. Either their stupid hinges work loose, meaning the seat could break free at any minute and I’ll go crashing to the bathroom floor, dashing my brains out on the basin en route and ending up on an episode of Ambulance.
Or, in the case of my current one, they actually crack. Yes, crack. Like an elephant has sat on it or something. I am many things, but I am not an elephant. Not since I’ve been on the fat jabs. “Well, you’ll just have to buy a new seat, Mike,” I hear you cry. “It’s no big deal, surely?”
Yeah, well, thanks for that. Do you think I haven’t already gone down that route? I bought one only yesterday on Amazon. And can I get it to fit? Can I heck. I’ve been trying for hours. It’s a stupid piece of rubbish, that’s what it is, just like all the others were. Is hating toilet seats a “hate crime”? In that case, arrest me. I hate toilet seats with a passion.
Let’s say no more on the matter.
Read more: Channel 4 throws everything at new reality show but these aren’t ordinary Brits
Let’s say no more because otherwise I won’t have room to tell you about this fine new TV series. It’s all about enterprising folk who’ve successfully bid for properties they’re eager to do up, refusing to be daunted by the fact they’re in a right old state (the properties, that is, not the enterprising folk).
Boy, do I envy these people. For their drive, their energy and, above all, their refusal to despair when a bathroom component turns out to have been designed by a moron. Oh, and they also get to meet Sarah Beeny and tell her their stories. I like Sarah Beeny. My favourite in this first show is the story of Janet Martin, who’s 70 and an ex-nurse.
For £15,000, Janet bought a derelict building in Newport, South Wales, and, over the course of a year, for a further cost of £55,000, lovingly turned it into a community performance space. With room for just 35 seats, it’s the smallest theatre in Wales, which only adds to its charm.
Honestly, this lady is a real inspiration. The world needs more Janets. Janets aren’t the sort to let some stupid toilet defeat them. Or this Janet certainly isn’t. Her theatre used to be a public loo.
Alice Roberts goes back in time at Barts Hospital, London (Image: Rory Mulvey / 5)
Alice Roberts: Our Hospital Through Time, 5, 8pm
Alice takes a look at hospital food. Which is fine, isn’t it? Nothing wrong with taking a look at it. She also hears from social historian Ruth Goodman, who reveals what patients at Barts were fed in the 1600s. Apparently, they used to get bread, cheese and beef (chuck in a little plastic toy and they pretty much had an early incarnation of the Happy Meal), but, weirdly, never veg. The hospital governors believed vegetables caused, among other things, “melancholy”.
Had they never met Kevin the Carrot?
My Garden of a Thousand Bees, BBC4, 8pm
People did all sorts of unusual things during lockdown. Martin Dohrn, from Bristol, decided to record all the bees he could find in his garden. I should probably explain that Martin is a wildlife film-maker by trade — in case you were thinking the poor chap had just gone doolally — and so the project was one he was able to approach with some expertise. Having initially expected to find about 10 species, he ended up discovering more than 60.
It’s not quite the thousand suggested by this programme’s title but, with the greatest of respect to the bee community, I’m thinking it’s probably plenty.
