Dick And Dom In Da Bungalow (BBC1); The Real Face Of Santa (BBC2): WILL the real Santa Claus stand up please? There are so many fat, bewhiskered old men in red suits ho, ho, ho-ing on our screens that some must be impostors.

Dick and Dom attempted to unmask the festive pretenders by getting youngsters to quiz a line-up of claimants to the Santa Claus title. The results were inconclusive.

You hoped that the one who answered the question "What if you were ill on Christmas Eve?" with the reply "Stay in bed" wasn't real as it would mean a lot of presents would go undelivered. And the one who replied "Can you repeat the question in French?" was an obvious fraud.

A third had to be discounted for telling bad jokes. He'd been asked what Mrs Christmas's first name was. "Mary," he replied. "Mary Christmas".

Identifying the real Santa wasn't the end of the story as later the studio was invaded by evil goblins. Santa was taken prisoner, decorations torn down and everyone made to eat shepherds pie instead of turkey.

It ended, as we've come to expect with Dick and Dom, with a massive gunge-flinging fight. This was marginally more appetising than an earlier game in which three dinner ladies flung festive food at the young Bungalow-heads. Their job was to catch it in plastic containers and then eat as much of the stuff as they could in five seconds.

At least, the menu was festive with satsumas and mash in one bucket, chocolate pudding and brussel sprouts in another, and turkey and custard in a third. Surprisingly, I can find those recipes in Delia's cook book.

Okay, I admit that Dick and Dom's Santa-seeking operation wasn't very scientific. The Real Face Of Santa was a more serious attempt to find out about the man who was the model for Mr Claus. This festive icon originated in the Eastern Mediterranean, as an early Christian bishop named St Nicholas. If his bones hadn't been stolen from Turkey, where he spent most of his life, and taken to Italy, he might have remained a rather obscure Eastern saint.

There was little evidence to go on. His bones have remained in a crypt for 900 years, taken out and examined only once, in 1953. From the evidence gathered then, a 3D virtual head was constructed on a computer. The result was far removed from the popular image of Santa Claus.

The broken nose was a particular worry. Why would a saint have a broken nose, asked the narrator. Because he was a bit of a bruiser, seemed to be the answer. St Nicholas was known to have a hot temper and once assaulted a bishop over his beliefs. Perhaps someone thumped him.

Until the 20th century, he was always portrayed as an elf-like person. The now-familiar red-costumed, white-bearded image was adopted from a Coca-Cola advertisement.

And, while we expect Santa to bring us presents every year, we're failing to look after him. His bones are in a bad condition. The tomb is damp and humid.

One of Italy's top forensic scientists warned that if the bones weren't treated as soon as possible, they could be lost within a 100 years. This hardly seems the right way to treat someone who's brought us so much.

Published: 20/12/2004