Backlash (BBC2)

When The Moors Ruled In Europe (C4)

Mariella Frostrup has nice breasts. There, I've said it. And without fear that the presenter will raise any objections because she gave me permission to say it in front of millions of TV viewers in Backlash.

She doesn't mind either if I send her saucy emails. She'd rather have equal pay, aware than women still earn less than men. "With those figures in mind you can say what you like about my breasts, drown me in spam email, but for decency's sake, give me equal pay," she declared.

The Equal Pay Act was introduced 30 years ago in the same year as the Sex Discrimination Act - and it was the latter that concerned Frostrup in Backlash, as she showed that particular law can be an ass and used for cases that those who drew up the legislation never imagined.

Some 67,000 sex discrimination cases have gone to tribunal in the last decade, although she wondered if misuse of the Act was ruining what women had set out to achieve.

She will have offended some women herself by contending that, in the workplace, women are sometimes a little overeager to apply the rules. One who objected to saucy emails circulated in her office won her case and £3,000 for "suffering injury to feeling" because her employer had failed to stop the circulation of the emails. The company now spends £20,000 on staff and systems to protect employees from random spam.

Perhaps, Frostrup pondered, we're emulating the litigious American culture. Alongside the cases come the £7,000-a-time courses at which employers learn how to defend themselves against harassment and discrimination charges. Being PC in the 21st century is big business.

And so it went on. The woman in the City who objected to sexual comments by a fellow worker and won £500,000 - but little sympathy from Frostrup. "Such examples of female sensitivity in the workplace can do little for the cause of female equality," she said.

Even the office Christmas party is a minefield of sexual exploitation. "Heaven forbid that we might flirt with a colleague," said Frostrup. The TUC was so worried that it issued a festive health warning, going as far as to suggest that mistletoe was best be avoided.

Frostrup was alarmed that sexuality was being neutered in the workplace - and you could see what she meant, although no male would dare point it out for fear of being taken to court.

Another Saturday, another two-hour history lesson from Bettany Hughes in When The Moors Ruled In Europe. She's always a pleasure to watch, although in case that sounds sexist I'd better say she's always a pleasure to hear.

She revealed "a forgotten chapter in European history" - the rise and fall of Islam in the west. In AD 711, Muslim forces invaded Spain and built a powerful and wealthy civilisation. When they were overthrown 700 years later, all evidence that the Moors had ever been there was systematically destroyed.

Hughes used new research to reveal their reign in Spain that ended with a massive dose of ethnic cleansing. More than a quarter of a million Muslims were expelled from Spain over a ten-year period.

It needs to be remembered and not written out of the history books, said Hughes. Very true, but could C4 please chop up her programmes into more viewer-friendly half-hour episodes and not make us sit there for two solid hours at a time.