THE central heating is on the blink, the Christmas Tree lights don't work and half the North-East seemed determined to join us for food shopping at 8am on Tuesday morning.

Am I close to joining the Grumpy Old Men At Christmas (BBC2, Christmas Day)? Not a bit of it.

My wife can surpass any mere male in her dismissal of mistletoe and wine, particularly as she's sporting Rudolph's best-known appendage and claiming it's the result of germs caught from yours truly.

Perhaps I shouldn't have told her my younger brother had sent our children £5 B&Q vouchers each after we agreed to send his large brood £15 apiece this year.

So the only mention of My Family (BBC1, Christmas Day) involved Robert Lindsay, Zoe Wanamaker and Kris Marshall which was a far more appealing prospect than the ailing Only Fools And Horses (BBC1, same day).

Even the news that Richard Whiteley was starring in My Family as himself and the tube train setting meant that the show dropped its live audience format didn't move my loved one in the direction of Emmerdale's dose of doom and gloom over on ITV1.

Harder choices were ahead on Boxing Day... finding something to watch at all.

The first of The Office Christmas Specials (BBC1) held about as much appeal for my other half as Rik Waller deciding to serenade her from our front garden in his underpants with a rose clamped somewhere secure.

The battle lines lay between the life of Norman Stanley Fletcher (BBC2), Agatha Christie's Poirot (ITV1) and The 100 Greatest Musicals (C4).

All starting at 9pm of course. Much was being made of Five's bid to offer us a taste of what the millions used to watch in Christmas's gone by, but greasy Reg Varney used to make me wince back in 1970 with On The Buses when it WAS the only thing to watch.

So not many return tickets were sold here.

Slade Prison and Norman Stanley was more cell-out than sell-out and those seeking whodunnit or whodanced it elsewhere faced two hours plus of alleged entertainment.

The box CD delights of Lord Of The Rings beckoned, although Sheila Hancock's grumpy old gal in the hilarious three-part Bedtime on BBC1 ground down the Gandalf groupies, in the shape of her son-in-law, to the significance of an Orc's eyebrow. "How helpful of him to explain all the extra scenes to us all night," she groaned.

Hmm, I wonder why my wife suggested I take our lot to Part III at the cinema while she was at work on Christmas Eve?

Celebrity Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (ITV1, Christmas Day) is going to be eclipsed by the interactive CD game we've been persuaded to buy for our oldest son.

I'm certainly not having Chris Tarrant badgering me with questions on two channels at once.

I am further disturbed by the news that two members of my family actually want me as their Phone-A-Friend if they ever get as far as the legendary spotlight seat. "What do they know about you that I don't?" said my wife.

Published: 27/12/2003