Jaw dropping

BEWARE of women throwing their weight around. Especially if they're female elephants. "If one goes all the way, it could be fatal," is the thought that went through Peter Coleman's head as his vehicle was being charged by an elephant matriarch protecting the herds.

He'd been told that these creatures always pull up at the last moment, although that's little consolation when such a creature is bearing down on you at a rate of knots.

The driver put his foot down but couldn't outrun the charging elephant. Peter, to his credit, remembered his job as a wildlife cameraman and tried to keep the camera in focus.

The elephant got so close, he recalls, you could see its spit on the lens.

It's one of the wildlife horror stories recalled in Up Close And Personal. Too Close For Comfort might be a more apt title.

Adrian Warren, who's been filming in Kenya for 20 years, believes animals aren't dangerous unless threatened. Which is why he shouldn't have peed over the side of his vehicle. The lion assumed he was marking his territory.

When his lioness mate went and settled by Warren's truck, the lion thought he had a rival in love. The animal lay down by the truck, put his chin almost resting on the cameraman's knee and snarled at him. Warren realised his only hope of not being eaten was to keep still. Happily, the lion wasn't too tired. They can sleep up to 20 hours a day. This one moved on after eight hours of kip and holding the cameraman hostage.

Producer and cameraman Andrew White wanted to get a new perspective on the great white shark, comforted by the knowledge that although the Jaws star can bite a car door in half, it hardly ever uses that power.

Alas, the shark showed an unhealthy interest in his special submarine, the underwater vehicle from which he was viewing their activities. The shark charged the sub - "like a freight train coming down at you" - and grabbed it in its jaws and shook it. As White describes it; "I am inside the jaws of a great white shark".

He really should take driving lessons. Later we hear that he crashed his sub into a crocodile. "We both got a fright," he says.

Nothing is as grizzly as the return of After You've Gone, a comedy (allegedly) that makes My Family look like Monty Python.

The house, like the script, is a mess when mother-in-law (Celia Imrie) and the children return home from holiday unexpectedly. "I've seen landfill sites tidier than this," she tells Jimmy (played by Nicholas Lyndhurst as a right plonker).

"You've got to see the funny side," he tells her.

"Got to, have we?," she replies. Well, actually, we don't. My finger went to the stop button on the DVD player at this point. I made my excuses and left for India.

The Story Of India continues with Michael Wood enthusiastically getting in the way of the scenery in every shot.

The problem with this series, like the Ganges that previously occupied this slot, is the visuals are so stunning that you can't be bothered to listen to the commentary.

Towns and landscapes, people and places are equally photogenic. I just wish Wood's approach was a little less academic and a little more accessible.

This week's episode, Spice Routes And Silk Roads, investigated the beginning of the world economy and at the centre was India.

The Romans wanted spices. We know that because someone Wood called "a top Roman celebrity chef" wrote a cookbook with 460-odd recipes, of which 350 were full of pepper - everything from whole spice flamingoes to dormice stuffed with peppercorn.

Can't wait to see Nigella or Jamie dish those up on their programmes.