Don't Get Me Started (five)

Kill Me If You Can (C4)

CLEARLY, Michael Buerk had got out of the wrong side of the bed. Something, presumably committed by a woman, had upset him. How else to explain his rant in Don't Get Me Started in which he claimed men are being edged out of the family, the workplace and wider society.

They have to play by women's rules and women's criteria, said poor Michael, who was feeling unloved and unwanted and wondering, "what are men for?".

They're not needed as breadwinners or protectors. Sperm banks, IVF and same sex marriages mean they're becoming redundant in other areas too. Soon, he contended, men will become optional extras like metallic paint on your car or chocolate on the top of your cappuccino.

As he maintained a straight face throughout, I assume he was being serious about the pendulum swinging too far in women's favour. He sounded like he was all for equality as long as men are more equal than women.

He threw around statistics like confetti, blaming women for the rise in male suicides, falling sperm counts and, most mysteriously, an improvement in pub lunches. Various parties were held responsible including Tony Blair (who, as far as I know, isn't a woman), TV and the rest of the media.

Buerk did find allies to describe men as "sperm donors, walking wallets and occasional au pairs". I'm uncertain that farmer Robin Page did his cause any good. Recently married at 61, he advocates the traditional division of duties - men at work, women in the home. "You want something warm in bed at this time of life," he said, explaining why he'd taken a wife.

Buerk asked why he didn't just get a terrier (although I don't think he was advocating using the dog for all marital duties).

"Because I haven't found a terrier who can use a Hoover," replied Page.

There was no end to Buerk's unsubstantiated generalisations - single mothers are dangerous, political correctness is a new form of McCarthyism and androgyny is the prevailing fashion. I'm sure a women would have been more precise.

Perhaps it's just a case of sour grapes, He complained at TV making lifestyle programmes at the expense of current affairs and documentaries. Could it be he's losing out on work and is jealous of female presenters getting all the best jobs?

The story behind Kill Me If You Can was so fantastic that no-one would disagree with the judge who, after hearing the resulting court case, noted that "a skilled writer of fiction could not have come up with this plot".

A 16-year-old schoolboy told police that he stabbed his best friend, 14-year-old John, because he was a secret agent, recruited over the Internet and acting under orders to kill by his spy mistress. This sounds crazy enough but there was a twist in the tale that was even more astounding.

It made for a gripping hour's TV as the story was pieced together, with the aid of barristers and reconstructions.