WHENEVER someone mentions the term self-made man I always start looking around for the wind they've been sailing close to.

At first sight oddball auctioneer Michael Hogben seems to have come from the early dodgy dealings days of David Dickinson, the Bargain Hunt presenter who now burnishes our screens.

Thanks to DD, the Folkstone auction house owner has unleashed his laddish loud-suited approach to life on TV as an antiques expert advising competing teams and staged the odd TV bidding battle as well. But when you spot Hogben's young blonde wife Lesley in Auction Man (BBC1, Wednesday) you realise he's more of a Lovejoy than a Delboy.

"Isn't she an actress? She looks like Rebecca Lacey (best-known as Irene Stuart the pregnant housekeeper of Monarch Of The Glen)," said my wife. And there was more... or Moir to be precise.

One Jim Moir, who is famous as Darlington-born Vic Reeves.

The comic is so friendly with Hogben that the auctioneer bought Moir's beach-front house and was shown helping the ex-North-East star move home with his young wife Nancy Sorrell. Well, help is too strong a term, Hogben's assistant Eric (another Lovejoy moment) did all the fetching and carrying while his boss enjoyed drinks with the celebrity couple.

My wife fumed quietly as Lesley was shown putting furniture together while her husband smoked a cigarette he'd promised to give up or buy his daughter a Tiffany bracelet. "The wide boy will be buying the bracelet then," she predicted.

And true enough, the Hogbens paraded into Harrods to purchase an item which probably cost the best part of the commission he made on a £28,000 painted chest.

Far more embarrassing than the inability to give up smoking were the scriptwriters for competing EastEnders spin-offs Perfectly Frank (BBC1) and Margery and Gladys (ITV1) on Sunday.

Both managed to feature central storylines of a dead body which wasn't really dead and the idea of rolling the departed up in an old carpet. At least Mike Reid's BBC version actually made you laugh while June Brown and Penelope Keith spent two hours barely raising a smile on ITV.

So hang your heads in shame scriptwriters Tony Jordan, John Flanagan and Andrew McCulloch for lack of originality.

The other twist in the ITV plot was that June Brown's cleaner Gladys had had a 20-year affair with Margery's well-heeled husband. "I can't believe this. It's nearly 20 years since June Brown started in EastEnders as Dot Cotton... and she was flipping old then," said my wife. Perhaps we should have opted for Waking The Dead over on BBC1.

High eyebrows man Kevin McCloud travelled to Cumbria this week for Grand Designs (C4, Wednesday) to tut-tut over Helen Gould and Phil Reddy's underground home.

Despite a massive glazed front and beautiful view the overall effect was more gun emplacement than des res thanks to the dungeon-like interior. It didn't help to discover that the architect was called Bodger or that my wife was now humming "I am a mole and I like in a hole".

Even Mr Hogben might have a few problems staging an auction over this home with an asking price of £250,000.

Published: 27/09/2003