TV VIEW:The weekend, to be honest, didn't start too well. Thanks to the BBC's fiddling with the schedules, to accommodate their live coverage of the Portsmouth v West Brom FA Cup semi-final and the Grand National, we missed the Omelette Challenge on Saturday Kitchen, which was on 10 minutes earlier than usual.

Did the BBC warn us in advance? Oh no. For that level of inconsideration we have much the same degree of patience as displayed by the drivers queued up behind that duck and her six babies between the Ballymun and Finglas exits on the M50 yesterday.

It's at times like this we understand those people who complain about channels mucking up their schedules simply because there's a bit of sport to be squeezed in. Mind you, it's the only time - usually we just say "'ah lighten up and go out and walk your Pekingese cat-cum-dog if you don't want to watch the football."

The Omelette Challenge is different, though. Actually it's sport. When Jun Tanaka cooked his three-egg omelette in 19 breathtaking seconds a while back it was the culinary equivalent of Ronnie Delany's 1956 Olympic gold.

Our mood needed lightening, then. And only one man on this earth could do it: McCain. Ginger McCain. Red Rum's other half, lest you forget.

Ginger, of course, is retired this weather, his training torch since passed to his son, Donald jr.

"You must be very proud and very pleased with the way he's taken over the trainer's licence?" asked John Parrott.

"Ah, I wouldn't say that," said Ginger.

"When you've got a boy and he's thick you can only do two things with him - if he's really, really thick make a trainer of him; if he's not too thick he'll go in the army. So the choice was one of two things, so we decided to make a trainer of him," he said.

Some day Ginger and Donald will go on the Dr Phil Show and Dr Phil will challenge Ginger about his parenting skills. At which point we will fear for Dr Phil's personal safety.

But Donald's doing grand, actually. "Despite what I say he has got half a brain," conceded Ginger, "and despite his breeding he's quite a nice person, he gets on with people." "He takes after his mother, then?" asked Parrott.

"Possibly, yes," said Ginger.

Alas, Donald's Cloudy Lane, the favourite, didn't win the National, and Ginger will, quite possibly, remind him of this for the rest of his time on earth. But maybe that's no bad thing; it'll keep Donald and Cloudy Lane on their hooves.

Now if Declan Kidney had been Cloudy Lane's trainer he'd probably have romped home, at the risk of muddling sporting codes, by 16 points to three.

"They've come to Kingsholm and have treated Gloucester with insouciant ease," said Sky's Stuart Barnes at the conclusion of the European Cup quarter-final.

They were no less impressed back in the Sky studio by the Panzer tank that is Munster. They were impressed, too, by the performance of the son of Cork hurling god Seanie O'Leary. Dewi Morris seemed to assume, judging by his pronunciation, he was named after the French rugby god Thomas Castaignede. Tomás as Gaeilge, Thomas as Français, sure what's the differ? As it proved poor old Chris Paterson was Gloucester's equivalent of poor old Kayode Odejayi, the - and we use the word loosely - Barnsley striker (see FA Cup semi-final yesterday). Both men were so off target with their goal attempts that duck and her six babies between the Ballymun and Finglas exits on the M50 were in danger of being struck.

Bang on target, though, has been RTÉ's Monday Night Soccer.

On the whole Irish television's coverage of Irish football thus far has been as successful as Paterson's kicking against Munster, but MNS is, well, a whole new ball game.

Raiders of the Lost Archive has been sublime, the highlight to date the exquisite goal by Finn Harps' Terry Leake against Derry City from the 1989-90 season (eh, lobbed over his own goalkeeper), Tony O'Donoghue's features (eg on referee Dave McKeon and the Cork derby between Cobh Ramblers and their minnow neighbours Cork City) and the all-round lively chat with sundry studio guests hosted by Con Murphy.

The purists (aka the humourless) might frown upon Jacqui Hurley's 60 Sixty with assorted players, but the rest of us are less fearful of a bit of fun.

In time UCD's Ronan Finn will recover from being asked "have you ever worn women's underwear" but Drogheda's Graham Gartland, evidently, was prepared for the challenge.

"What's your favourite position," asked Jacqui.

"You should know," he said.

Jacqui grinned. And with that Drogheda took an unassailable 1-0 lead.

"Now if Declan Kidney had been Cloudy Lane's trainer he'd probably have romped home, at the risk of muddling sporting codes, by 16 points to three