Radio Times

I'm confident that I speak for my people (women) when I say that the translucent, white British male thigh should only be exposed in the gravest of emergencies. Sorry, menfolk, but that means tiny shorts are out. And this applies tenfold on television.

But one man's pasty thigh-flashing I'll let pass: that of king forager Ray Mears, whose cropped, utility beige legwear is an essential aid to his acrobatic hunter-gatherer demonstrations. I'm also sure that a full trouser would cramp his trademark stance: the squat-and-explain.

It's not his scoutish khaki outfits that I find so helplessly alluring. It's his utterly earnest desire to imbue us...

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Every week it happens. I get lulled into a false sense of security by the mind-bogglingly simple opening round, you see. Then along comes "Information Overload". I concentrate hard on my TV screen as my senses are assaulted with conflicting aural and visual stimuli, unlike anything outside of maybe an acid trip.

Now for the test: "What colour was the ice-cream cone that appeared when the newsreader was talking?" asks the chap in the suit that's working really well with his broad shoulders and chiselled jaw.

"Red," I say, confidently, to the television.

"Red?" guesses the hapless adult on the gogglebox.

Wrong!

"Blue?" ventures...

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The Doctor wouldn't tell you in tonight's episode, so I will: the answer to Donna's question is that a woman Time Lord is called a Time Lady.

It wasn't a hard answer, you could argue she might reasonably have worked it out herself, and it's true that the Doctor was occupied. But still, it sounds somehow naff. They definitely did not think of Time Lady first and then work out the male equivalent. Time Lord sounds a little posh, Time Lady is just somehow dismissive, like you married a Time Lord for his Tardis. And Time Ladies is worse, it's like the chucking-out hour in pubs: Time Ladies,...

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The career of Frank Sinatra, who died ten years ago this week, is marked by a season of films on TCM.

As a pin-up of the 1940s, he made such popular musicals as Take Me Out to the Ball Game and Till the Clouds Roll By.

A grittier role in From Here to Eternity in 1953 marked a change of pace, leading to more dramatic fare such as Some Came Running, but also comedies like The Tender Trap. And, yes, even the odd musical of the calibre of High Society – all a fitting tribute to Ol’ Blue Eyes’ talents.

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Since one of my favourite ever films, The Poseidon Adventure, falls well outside the critically accepted canon, I’m used to the idea of the guilty pleasure. A high-wire 1970s disaster movie designed for its popular appeal, whose dialogue has been derided as "waterlogged" and its characters "cardboard", it'll never trouble Citizen Kane, The Godfather or Bicycle Thieves in any critic's Top Ten.

But do you know what? I'd sit down and watch it right now if it was on – while I'd really have to be in the right mood for, say, confirmed classic La Règle du Jeu.

This, it seems, is the...

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I love filthy, depraved TV comedies. The more filthy, the more depraved the better. Sadly television doesn't serve me well, so short of lurking around the more shadowy corners of Kings Cross wearing too much rouge and asking if anyone knows where I can get a particularly scummy sitcom, I have only Peep Show (Fridays, Channel 4) to feed my addiction. (And BBC4's The Thick of It too, when it's on. Oh, and Curb Your Enthusiasm).

Peep Show is wonderful, a model of edgy comedy perfection, with sharply brilliant, misanthropic, literate scripts from writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong and perfectly deadpan performances by David Mitchell...

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Ding-dong, the witch is dead! The wicked witch is dead! Yes, nasty, flame-haired Jenny finally had a bucket of cold water flung over her by Sir Alan (although instead of melting away like the real Wicked Witch of the West, she just took a taxi).

Throughout the series, Jenny has snipped and sniped at her own teammates (never mind her opponents) and, like many of the candidates, she was always Machiavellian in the boardroom.

But this week's task marked a new low. Jenny was at her most underhand, attempting to sabotage her opponents by bribing a shop assistant (who thankfully had more integrity than she does), then,...

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Second parts are a killer. I know this because I once wrote a Tuesday episode of Crossroads and the sole fun part was standing in my kitchen talking to the writers of Monday and Wednesday's episodes about how they fit together.

But as good as it was to see actors saying my lines on TV, we three were only chatting because we needed a social life. There was no real need to compare notes like that because when you're on a soap, you are all lumbered with an intensively detailed outline, I mean preposterously detailed. When you're on Doctor Who, you're not.

Last week Helen Raynor had the...

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Let's not beat around the bush: films about football just don’t work, do they? Boxing translates brilliantly to the screen. Athletics gave us Chariots of Fire. But think of the beautiful game and you’ll only come up with ugly films.

It’s saying something when films about football supporters (Fever Pitch, Purely Belter) – or even hooligans (The Firm – not the Tom Cruise one, the Gary Oldman one – and The Football Factory) – are more dramatic than those about what happens on the pitch.

Although it’s now become something of a guilty pleasure, 1981’s Escape to Victory remains the nadir of the...

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With the fourth Indiana Jones movie about to premiere at Cannes (it’s released in the UK on 22 May), Harrison Ford seems to be back on top of his game. At 65, he wears the ageing action-hero mantle with more credibility than Sly or Arnie – thanks to his laconic approach to the iconic role.

After small parts in American Graffiti and The Conversation, Ford took off as the sardonic Han Solo in the first Stars Wars movie. Now a bankable star, he proved his effortless, slightly weary authority in hits like The Fugitive and Air Force One.

As Indy himself summed...

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I wonder what particular kind of viciously destructive bile courses through the insides of a person who’d bother to sit down, take up a pen, and scribble hate mail to Kate and Gerry McCann.

In a revelatory sequence during Emma Loach’s excellent, moving film, Madeleine, One Year On: Campaign for Change (Wednesday 30 April, 8:00pm, ITV1), the McCanns were seen sorting through their post. There was a box for the psychic sightings, another for messages from well-wishers and another for, well, the horrible stuff. And it was really horrible. Gerry McCann read the toxic “greeting” on a Christmas card in which the sender claimed their “brat”...

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So, who wants to hear about my trip to the shops in search of Apprentice ice cream? Well, as an ice cream-tasting expedition it was fundamentally flawed (there was no ice cream, hence no tasting), but as a first stab at investigative journalism, I’m really quite pleased with it.

The manager of the shop confirmed that Claire’s team had indeed paid her a visit - back in June 2007! (I realise they don’t film the show on the week it’s broadcast, but who knew it lagged that far behind? It's strange to think that Sir Alan's Apprentice may already have been chosen.)

What’s more – and this will...

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