HAVING had my usual feast of Golf: the Open (BBC1 and BBC2) put under somewhat of a handicap this year, I've found myself seeking less sporting entertainment.

It felt a little like watching Frank Spencer putting with a plastic child's nine iron when my wife asked: "Why is that chap spending all his time playing in the sandpit?"

The fact that it was Thomas Bjorn blowing his major chances in a bunker failed to make much impact. In search of something more exciting, I tried the return of Package Holiday - Undercover (ITV1, Tuesday).

"I'm never going to Bulgaria now... and I was never going there in the first place," said my wife after watching an expose of the "very popular with the Brits" Hotel International with its rotting rooms and egg and brussels sprouts meals. As there was no mention of prices paid, it was a little difficult to judge whether expectations were too high or tourists were being ripped off.

There was no hiding the influence of the BBC's previous series about Ark Royal (five, Wednesday) because the crew gave a rendition of Sailing, the Rod Stewart tune adopted for the 1976 BBC show, to close the first of this three-parter.

I'm afraid that the following World War I In Colour, despite Kenneth Branagh's bold narration, is still one for the military anoraks, as was the next programme Battlefield Detectives: What Sank the Armada? Answer: running into the coastline of Scotland and Ireland trying to avoid storms and the English navy.

The only delight here was a reconstructed English cannon being fired for hours by experts without once hitting the target. Are you sure bunkers are more boring?

Having grown blas over Bargain Hunt, Flog It, Cash In The Attic etc, it was finally time to look at the big hitters of the auction rooms in Highest Bidder (BBC2, Thursday).

Despite Van Gogh's Sunflowers being the best-known of his paintings, it was his work dedicated to the doctor who couldn't cure him of madness, Dr Gachet, which was shown setting the world record of $82.5m. Apparently, not only did Japanese corporations outbid everyone else at Sotheby's and Christie's in the 1980s and early 1990s, but they also believe in shutting away these masters in vaults and bringing them out on special occasions.

Fascinatingly, the portrait Of Dr Gachet was once secretly sold by Goering to a Jewish collector because the Nazis were offended by "degenerate art". The world's most expensive painting has now vanished after it was sold for a reported $90m when its new Japanese owner died and it was reclaimed by his bank.

More mystery surfaced on the returning House Doctor (five, Thursday). Teresa and Nigel Parfitt's neat, but somewhat overcrowded, two-bed home of two adults, a child and four dogs hadn't sold for six months. Enter the snobbish Ann Maurice, talking cold common sense about decluttering to sell the £78,000 property in Cradley Heath, which I discovered is near Birmingham.

After enduring a week of re-decorating and insults about the smell of dog, the couple promptly threw the House Doctor team out, moved everything back inside and took the house off the market.

It was as unexpected as a complete rookie winning the British Open.

Published: 26/07/2003