Being a relatively new resident of the Chubby Kingdom I found myself
drawn to Fat Bloke (Channel 4) in the same way that some of the
corpulent subjects in this disarmingly charming documentary were
attracted to six-cone ice-creams and Chunky Kit Kats.

You see, four years ago I suffered a fairly serious and, I have to
admit, self-inflicted football injury. Without the benefit of regular
football or tennis I began to expand at much the same rate as the
Universe did after the Big Bang. These days I rarely inspect myself
in the mirror and when I do I am astonished at my odd shape; I don't
so much have a beer belly as a beer chest. I have also found myself
idly flicking through the Yellow Pages looking for the nearest branch
of High and Mighty (which, if it were being entirely honest, would
rename itself Huge Clothes for Fat Blokes).

Luckily I have a beautiful girlfriend who is completely
understanding. Recently she uttered, somewhat gnomically: "I love you
the way you are: you are very comfortable." I think that she may have
meant that I am well-upholstered. Sloth is also a tough rut to drag
yourself out of. Six months ago I was told I could exercise lightly.
However, I am not entirely sure lifting a pint of Guinness from the
table to my mouth was what my doctor had in mind.

It is clearly a mid-to-late thirties phenomenon because, like me,
most of the rather brave men who allowed themselves to be filmed for
Fat Bloke were in their "middle youth". There was 34-year-old Dave
who, at 17 stone, was a mere stripling next to 26-stone Pete. They
were both members of an all-male slimming club in Liverpool. At the
beginning of the programme Pete was asked by the group leader why,
after being last week's slimmer of the week having lost 5lb, he had
put a pound back on. "Why were you not focused this week, Pete?"
enquired the Fat Botherer. "I think it was the shock of winning
slimmer of the week," Pete replied sheepishly. "Didn't it inspire
you?" "Yes, it inspired me back on to the chocolate," grinned Pete as
the rest of the portly group fell about.

In Swansea, 20-stone Gareth Edwards (I don't think it was the former
rugby player. If it was, he has let himself go a bit) cut a forlorn
figure. Gareth looked like a roadie for Black Sabbath but beneath the
menacing exterior was a delicate flower. "I hate being this way," he
said pulling up his top to reveal a magnificent paunch. "It's ugly,
it's horrible. It shouldn't be like this. I don't want it to be this
way."

Having tried to diet in vain Gareth was about to go the whole, er,
hog and have his stomach stapled. This operation would reduce his
stomach capacity from 1.5 litres to just 20ml. Happily the stapling
operation was successful and at the end of the programme we were
informed that since the surgery Gareth's waist had shrunk 11in from
47in to 36in. But despite an alarming statistic that the number of
British men who are obese or overweight has tripled in the past 20
years, some of the outsize crew were defiant. "I like being big,"
said one tattooed biker-type. "After all, little blokes are nasty and
snappy."

Dr Zavos is a little fellow. He is also nasty and snappy. What is
worse, though, is that he appears to be a greedy charlatan determined
to be the first doctor to clone a human being. Last night's Horizon
(BBC2) examined the chances of his success. Zavos makes a tidy living
as a fertility consultant: Now he is offering 200 childless couples
the opportunity, at Pounds 100,000 a pop, to have a cloned child.

Despite overwhelming scientific evidence that this is not only
unlikely to succeed (more than 1,000 attempts at cloning man's
nearest relative, the Rhesus monkey, have been, literally, fruitless)
but dangerous if successful, Zavos is set on cloning his first child
by the end of the year. While it is probably inevitable that the
cloning of human beings will happen, current technology is still very
primitive. The majority of cloned animals have been born with an
array of deformities not seen before in nature. A human baby clone
would also be likely to suffer hitherto-unknown illnesses. However,
the odious American is clearly too keen to relieve desperate parents
of vast sums of money to let mere detail stymie him.

And detail was what was lacking in the first episode of Victoria
Wood's Sketch Show Story (BBC1). The format of the show was just too
shallow. Two minutes each on The Goons, Monty Python and Peter Cook
and Dudley Moore was inadequate, though Wood, oddly enough, allowed
her own whimsical offerings substantially more time. There was barely
any contextualising or analysis and, frustratingly, only brief
snatches of sketches. Let us hope that next week's episode is a
little more satisfying.

Now, where did I leave that staple gun?

_________________________________________________________________


Just imagine it. You have been invited to a question and answer
session with Monica Lewinsky, the woman at least partially
responsible for the impeachment of an American president. The terms
of her immunity that prohibited her from discussing the circumstances
surrounding her affair with Bill Clinton no longer apply. She has
already suggested that she will answer pretty much any question. You
put up your hand and you get to ask the first question. What would it
be? How do you think history will judge you, Monica? What was it like
being locked up with the FBI and the special prosecutor, Kenneth
Starr, for so long as they tried to coerce you into co-operating?
Maybe prurience would get the better of you and you would just want
to know how on earth a cigar could be used as a sexual aid?
Regardless, there would be a million juicy questions you could ask.
So what question does the bespectacled female student who has been
sel-ected to go first come up with? "Your enormous celebrity has
definitely had a huge price tag. Do you think it's been worth it?"

Come again? You frantically wave your hand in the air like a
five-year-old begging to be excused to go to the toilet and that is
your question? What most interests you most about one of the most
remarkable episodes of recent American political history is celebrity
and the concept of being famous.

It would be easy for me to dismiss True Stories: Monica in Black and
White (Channel 4) as another example of Americans refusing to engage
in anything more than superficial nonsense. But I am willing to bet
my entire collection of Sopranos DVDs that the programme with the
highest viewing figures last night was Being Victoria Beckham (ITV1),
a flyaway puff piece with no discernible purpose other than to waste
more than an hour of the viewer's life.

We were treated to Victoria and her husband David cuddled up watching
television. "Angelina Jolie's really pretty," says Victoria. "She's
alright," says David scratching his skinhead before upping his
estimation of Jolie's pulchritude. "She's nice actually, really
nice." Victoria agrees, "She's very pretty." David not to be outdone,
goes for broke. "Yeah, she's really pretty."

I actually felt some of my brain cells expiring during that exchange,
an exchange that made the banal musings of The Royle Family sound
like a feisty edition of The Late Review.

Of course I only watched Being Victoria Beckham for professional
reasons but I don't mind admitting that I did approach the programme
with some mild curiosity. But even this modest thirst was not slaked,
because apart from the aforementioned "conversation" about the
comeliness of Angelina Jolie (and I remembered that only in honour of
my dear departed brain cells) absolutely nothing stuck in my mind
after watching the programme. It was as if I had spent more than an
hour asleep (although sleeping doesn't damage your brain). OK, there
is a vague recollection that the Beckhams seemed to get on quite well
but if you have more money than you know what to do with and the
interior lives of a couple of ants then what on earth are you going
to find to argue about? You are hardly going to head for the divorce
courts because you can't quite agree on how attractive Brad Pitt is.

But back to Monica in Black and White, because apart from the
mindnumbingly dim opening question this was sporadically interesting.
Even though it is quite clear that Lewinsky is not blessed with a
formidable intellect, is tiresomely given to dissolving into tears at
the slightest provocation and likes nothing more than a good wallow,
she came across as about the only half decent person in the rather
unpleasant affair.

Of course, Clinton, himself, may have been a rather efficient
president but his conduct during this period was reprehensible, while
the odious Starr was a vindictive bully. However, these two were both
outdone in the malevolence stakes by Linda Tripp, the woman who lured
Lewinsky into a trap by pretending to be her friend. Though there
were moments of glutinous sentimentality ("How am I?" responds
Lewinsky to a question from one of the "inquisitors". "I'm soo
touched by that," she whimpers, stifling her hundredth crying jag of
the day. "Thank you very much for asking.") whenever Tripp's name was
mentioned Lewinsky's usually moist eyes hardened and she would spit
out an expletive.

However, Lewinsky didn't quite carry off her wronged woman act,
because when she was asked if she had thought of Hillary Clinton at
any time during her relationship with the president, she said: "No,
because I didn't ever expect her to find out." When the crowd laughed
at what they thought was Lewinsky being knowingly provocative
Lewinsky was puzzled. "Why are you laughing?" She may have emerged
from the scandal having suffered less collateral damage than some of
the other players but it is clear that Lewinsky's moral compass has
certainly taken something of a battering.