Radio Times

"Now then," continues the presenter, with a broad smile that promises astonishing bargains. "Let's move on to item number 674107, which is the Chronograph Black Dial Stainless Steel Watch. Of course, it's made of steel, and I know it sounds obvious, but it's not going to stain." The trick that the QVC host has to pull off is simply to keep talking.

If that means describing the non-corrosive properties of ferrous alloys, fine. If it means describing a few garments that might show off the watch to its best effect, so be it. If it means recounting an...

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Host Andrew Neil sits slumped in his chair with the collar of his shirt riding high enough to brush his earlobes.

Pundit Michael Portillo's eyes have narrowed to the size of staples, as though he's been peering through cigarette smoke for five hours, while sparring partner Diane Abbott looks set to fall off the sofa in gales of laughter at one of Neil's mugs to camera. Even guests wait in the wings with champagne flutes in hand.

Tucked away in the schedules, This Week gets away with being off-message and gossipy to the point of borderline slander,...

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One of my favourite history lessons is a tale about the advent of moving pictures. It is said that when film cameras were first developed, someone decided it would be a good idea to record footage of a steam train coming down the tracks and to show it in a cinema as proof of the fantastic new technology.

Having never seen two-dimensional moving images before, the majority of the audience at the screening ran screaming from the auditorium, convinced that the train coming towards them was going to burst through the screen and crush them all into...

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Do you revel in being a mine of useless information? If so, QI could be worth a view.

As a presenter, Fry is always good value. He has a way of introducing questions, expanding on answers or just making conversation that seems thoroughly effortless and pleasantly enlightening.

As a quiz show, QI's clever, without being too clever, seems fresher than Have I Got News for You and more imaginative than 8 out of 10 Cats. One of the main reasons it works so well is because of Fry's interaction with the only ever-present guest, Alan...

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Have you ever felt nervous at the prospect of friends coming over to dinner, wondering whether your cooking will be up to scratch? Now imagine doing the same with four complete strangers coming to dinner.

Welcome to the marvellous world of Come Dine with Me, surely the most under-rated of TV's numerous food programmes. It is a hidden gem in Channel 4's daytime schedule.

Some may moan about yet another cookery show, but that misses the point. Come Dine with Me is not just another dreary cookery show. It is more about how best to throw a dinner...

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The first rule of creating a successful TV detective reads thus:

"The detective must have a major flaw in his personality. It must be exaggerated to such an extreme that, if you were to encounter such a person in the kitchen of a house party, you'd be tempted to launch yourself through the window and send the host a dry-cleaning bill for your suit.

"However, said flaw also makes them very good at their job, like a miner with a torch instead of a nose."

This is why Morse is an interminably miserable old sod. It's why...

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"I seem to bother people," says Peter Falk's dishevelled detective Columbo in the show's pilot. "I make them nervous."

Too right he gets his suspects hot under the collar. It's bad enough when he shows up at your house once - if he makes a return visit, you know you're done for.

The 1970s really did belong to LAPD's shambling lieutenant; a seemingly confused blue-collar bumbler who snared his prey in an elegant cat-and-mouse game and wiped the smug smiles off their murderous faces in the final act. His performance turned Peter Falk into a sleuthing icon.

Here...

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Admit to someone that you watch Countdown and you're immediately pigeonholed as the kind of feckless slug-a-bed who never grew out of studenthood.

While there is some validity to this criticism, much of it is borne out of jealousy from those forced to leave the comfort of their homes to perform soul-destroying work. After all, would you rather be nestled on the sofa in front of a words-and-numbers quiz, or stuck on the tube attempting a sudoku with your face in a stranger's armpit?

Often lumped in with the mindless morass of daytime television, it is unfair to...

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Yes, it's a cosy US sitcom with a cacophonous laugh track. Yes, it's about unfeasibly jolly New Yorkers living in unfeasibly nice apartments. Yes, it's obviously been conceived as a replacement for Friends. And having purchased the rights, BBC2 lost its nerve and buried it in obscure Sunday-night slots.

But How I Met Your Mother became a sleeper hit last year in the States, where it's just returned for series two. Quite right: it's a little bundle of joy.

Just like Friends, it concerns a group of 20-something pals who have formed an "urban family". Lovable lunk...

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Now let's not go over the top here. State-enforced, compulsory watching of The Bill - a system whereby all under 18s spend an hour every Thursday under armed guard having their eyes held open by Clockwork Orange-style forceps - probably isn't the key to building a crime-free utopia. But it should be!

The Bill, you see, is the single most true-to-life, realistic and downright educational series on British TV, and that includes David Attenborough's wildlife documentaries (which, while great, are only really true to life if you're a chimp, or David Attenborough).

Want your children to...

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The gong to mark the end of the opening episode of University Challenge was first thumped some 44 years ago.

While the first incarnation of the show, presented by the benign figure of Bamber Gascoigne, was an impressive demonstration of general knowledge by young adults, the shows since 1994 have been injected with anfascinating mixture of impatience and barely concealed contempt, thanks to the presence in the chair of Jeremy Paxman.

University Challenge is supposed to be a battle of minds between two teams of four students, but far more intriguing is the battle between all eight students...

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