Going with the grain

Following the closure of the digital learning channel, BBC Knowledge, I feel that the time is right for me to launch a new station called BBC Ignorance. Proudly displaying the corporation crest on its logo (with the motto subtly changed to read "Moron shall speak bilge unto moron"), my channel will specialise in sentimental programmes with imbecilic formats, and we'll therefore be commissioning plenty of animal shows, each with a novel twist.

For example, Vietnam Vets in Practice will follow a platoon of trigger-happy ex-GIs as it re-enacts the My Lai massacre on a Dorset sheep farm (while singing a cover of Ol Blue Lips' classic I Did It My Lai).

Animal Hospice will be broadcast live from a working abattoir, where cows are turned into steaks as Rolf looks mournfully on, saying, "Sadly, Daisy didn't make it through the operation", and prodding cattle with his electric didgeridon't. And there'll also be a series aimed at camping enthusiasts with an interest in endangered marine life, entitled For All in Tents and Porpoises.

My financial advisers (Rank Amateur Shambolic) have cautioned me that there may not be a gap in the market after all, because BBC1 has already transformed itself into BBC Ignorance. That's true, but those of us who still have faith in the ability of British Patent 269658 (originally called "Seeing by Wireless") to provide intelligent and inventive programming should not despair because, just like the weather-house couple, BBC1 is getting thicker as BBC2 is getting smarter.

BBC2's originality is particularly evident in its comedy output, and nowhere more so than in Double Take, an ingeniously grainy and soft-focus format that is proving to be television's answer to the "Squidgy" tapes. After all, the entire medium is fundamentally voyeuristic in its appeal, and as long as those pesky privacy laws prevent us from poking cameras and microphones into the bedrooms and bathrooms of the famous, why not do the next best thing by faking the private lives of celebs?

The freshness and creativity of the programme were evident throughout Monday night's edition (which I'm writing about now because the programme I'd intended to review today was gunned down by extended war coverage, one more victim of collateral damage).

There were no jokes or "pull to reveal" stunts here, yet the combination of craftily indistinct and believable footage (of a type first seen briefly on The Day Today) and a hauntingly eclectic soundtrack (à la Dom Joly) was utterly compelling, especially if you had a glass of something strong to sip as you watched, or possibly a gallon of bong water.

Talking of which, one of the sequences we saw featured a simulacrum of a young James Hewitt smoking a spliff, a habit that I've long suspected begins with a childhood addiction to Barrett's sherbet fountains (which are nothing less than cocaine for the under-fives). At least, I think it was a young James Hewitt lookalike, but you can never be sure. Perhaps it was a maturelooking Prince Harry.

One recurring theme is a series of vignettes of the royal family, captured during its off-duty moments. Last week gave us the thrilling sight of Her Majesty stripped down to her bra, while Monday brought us the rather less appealing spectacle of Camilla in her undies, and I gave thanks that the visual quality was mercifully blurred and obscure.

The furtiveness of the cameraworkquickly turned us all into Peeping Toms, colluding in the invasion of celebrity privacy, whether it was Kylie receiving emergency liposuction on her tradesman's entrance, Michael Winner fluffing his lines in a car-insurance commercial, Jamie Oliver impersonating Nigella (with the aid of a wig and two halves of a honeydew melon), Charles playing adolescent kissing games with Mrs Parker Bowles, or Elton John being dragged beneath the door of a lavatory cubicle.