TV Review: A burglar paid a visit to my house during the week and the only thing he grabbed was the television. He was last seen scarpering rather awkwardly from the scene of the crime, with the lead trailing behind him. The remote control now maintains a lonely vigil, pointing forlornly at the empty space where the television used to sit. The incident made me pretty mad. If he was really so upset by the quality of this column, there is a contact address supplied at the end, writes Shane Hegarty.
Perhaps I could build my own replacement set. John Logie Baird made the first mechanical television from a selection of ingredients that included a coffin lid and a hat box. His first successful image was the blurred image of a cross. He was understandably overjoyed with this ground-breaking transmission, although he was probably quickly deflated when the first television critics complained of the programme's total absence of coherent plot and reliance on overbearing religious imagery.
Baird's eccentric genius featured in Inventions That Changed The World, which this week looked at the television; or, as it could have been known, the telephonoscope, the radiovision or the teleramophone. Mesmeric, liberating, socially destructive; an all-consuming device without which, admitted presenter Jeremy Clarkson, "I simply wouldn't have a job". Well, it was bound to have disadvantages, but let's muddle on.
In Europe, there are now more television sets than children. Earlier this year, one in 12 Britons watched The UK's Worst Toilet. We spend nine years of our lives in front of the box. Much of that time, I suspect, is spent trying to find a programme that does not feature Jeremy Clarkson.
Its focus was the work of numerous inventors, but this programme chose the stories of Baird and a 14-year-old Mormon with the glorious name of Philo T Farnsworth. The Idaho farmboy came up with the idea of the cathode ray tube while out tilling the land. It is a tribute to the inherent magic of television that even when its fundamentals are explained to you, it still seems to be an utterly impossible feat to send moving pictures from one box to another. That a 14-year-old boy on a horse-drawn plough could see the future of mass communication in the furrows of a dry field is enough to make your brain burble.
Meanwhile, back in Britain, Baird, whose previous inventions had included pneumatic boots and a glass razorblade, was busy blowing up his Hastings flat in the hope of producing flickering pictures on a tiny screen. He later made the first transatlantic broadcast and also gave us the first television presenter: a teenager by the name of Bill Tainton who was grabbed from the street and given half a crown to sit still. Tainton stuck his tongue out at the lens, which blew his chances of getting a major chat show.
This tale of television ran out of juice once the story of the inventors had been told and Clarkson's patter couldn't compete with the enormous task of summing up its history and influence. But, for a good while, it had been quite fun, a waggish primer in the origins of a device that took over the planet, re-ordered the livingroom, shortened our attention spans and without which I wouldn't have a job, nor would one burglar have (I can only hope) a strained back.
There was magic of sorts in the second part of Pagans, which saw Richard Rudgley continue his tour of Europe in an effort to understand our pagan heritage. It is more than a little ostentatious and the first programme, titled Sexy Beasts, had been a romp through the sexual rituals of our ancestors. His only reference to Ireland had concerned a tribesman who was recorded as having sex with a horse in front of a watching crowd. Honestly.
Things get a little out of hand at a party 1,000 years ago and we're never allowed to forget it.
Rudgley made up for that in the second programme which this week paid a visit to Newgrange and marvelled at the astronomical precision behind its construction. He was given a tour by Frank Prendergast, who is an archaeo-astronomer. There are some job titles you really wish your guidance teacher had told you about. He gave Rudgley a tour of the chamber, but should consider himself lucky that it went no further. The previous week, Rudgley had entered a smoke sauna with a female Estonian archaeologist. They stripped down, turned up the heat and discussed the quirks of the pagan era.
At that very moment, adolescent boys across the land decided that, whether their career guidance teacher helps them or not, there is going to be only one career for them.
Also present in Pagans was an experimental archaeologist, a gentleman who spends his time recreating Bronze Age technology and has a beard that reaches to his chest and hair wilder than a pagan party, so that it looks as if he has spent some time on work experience in the Bronze Age. He is also quite nifty with the hallucinogenic mushrooms and whipped up a little concoction while telling us how much of the ancient rituals echo with us today. The traditions around the winter solstice were co-opted by the church for Christmas. Santa Claus may owe his trademark outfit to the red and white cap of the striking fly agaric mushroom.
For all its irritating gimmickry and Rudgley's abrasive presence, something like Pagans makes you realise how much enjoyment there is in trying to decipher the clues left by ancient cultures. It strikes you that we should be a little more coy with our legacy; that we should leave fewer clues to make it more fun for TV historians of the distant future.
Kath and Kim is an Australian sitcom set in Fountain Lakes, a suburb of Melbourne that seems to have snagged itself on the 1980s. The men wear leather jackets with thin ties; the women sport bad perms and padded shoulders. There is more than a touch of Sylvania Waters about it, for those who remember the influential fly-on-the-wall series which taught us how much fun it can be to watch a family communicate almost solely through verbal violence.
In Kath and Kim, coarse Antipodean slang bounces around the dialogue and it is all quite cartoonish, but it has its moments. Written and starring Gina Riley and Jane Turner, Kath is a mother looking to fill her days now that the nest is empty, while Kim is her daughter married to a man who loves his dog more than her. It is, apparently, the most successful sitcom in Australian history. It won't have quite the same impact here, but it passes a few summer minutes.
In The Daniel O'Donnell Show, the Donegal singer is back on the television having left behind BBC Northern Ireland, where he formerly presented Daniel.
When your name is that famous, there's no point in hiding it behind some fancy title.
With this latest programme the Donegal singer tackles major social issues of the day in a provocative, outrageous and often shocking style. Of course he doesn't. It is a light mixture of chat and music. With his previous show he had proven himself to be a decent teller of anecdotes, the charismatic restraint actually coming across as delightfully dry. There's nothing yet like that in the new show. Instead, Daniel tells the guests that they're the most wonderful people he has ever met and then he sings another song. The studio audience is quite obviously of a particular demographic, so when the camera flies over their heads it reveals a blanket of silver-white. They are very happy to be there, although it is a little puzzling as to who is doing the exaggerated whooping and whistling that can be heard when guests are introduced. Although, when Daniel did a little Elvis hip-swivel at the end of one song, you could feel the electricity ripple through the tight perms.
It is Sunday evening ephemera; clap-along television. It is also a passing opportunity for those who just don't get the Daniel O'Donnell phenomenon to try and understand it. And for those who do, it is probably dangerously exciting.
Finally, thanks to those readers of last week's review who spotted how I mentioned that Craig Doyle didn't get a "peak" inside Hugh Hefner's master bedroomin the Playboy mansion. Paging Dr Freud!