Like a pig in...

PIGS, My Life As An Animal informs us, are the fourth most intelligent species on the planet. They certainly have more brains than entrepreneur Richard Da Costa and radio travel reporter Lynsey Horn, who volunteer to live as pigs for four days in this ridiculous new series.

The mad idea is that they must live, eat and smell the life of the beast. Da Costa even gets to have sex with a pig. Sort of.

First he watches them doing it, learning that the average pig orgasm lasts 13 minutes.

Or it might have been 30 minutes.

Whatever the figure, I was impressed. As a pint of semen passes from one to the other, you can understand why it lasts that long.

The pig farmer is very helpful when the male pig has difficulty mounting the female.

“Sometimes you have to give them a hand,” he says. I didn’t want him to elaborate.

Then it’s Da Costa’s turn, using artificial insemination, which means inserting semen on a stick into the sow.

“This feels very weird in all respects,”

he says. Not as weird as it looks to the viewer, I might add.

Lynsey doesn’t get as far as pig sex.

She’s freaking out at having to sleep in a pigsty with 63 pigs. That’ll teach her admitting to having a bacon sandwich before embarking on her mission.

She’s mindful of the warning that pigs are very powerful and have a sharp bite.

Putting on clothes covered in urine and droppings, and then smearing herself with dung is meant to help her be accepted.

The silly girl thought she’d have her own tent to sleep in. At least she’s with organically-farmed pigs. Da Costa is the new boy on a farm where pigs are intensively farmed, living in pens and fed automatically.

But he’s much happier than her. He’s like a pig in... well, you know the rest.

Soon he’s cosying up to his ten new porcine pals in a pen the size of the average prison cell.

He’s a natural. He’s soon on all fours headbutting a pig that nips him. Before long, he’s making pig grunting noises (an expert is on hand to teach him) and nibbling the ear of one of his companions.

The food – high protein pellets – isn’t too his taste, though.

Both are relieved when the experiment is over, especially as they don’t have to do the last part, only watch the slaughter of pigs in an abattoir.

Things are tough in the property business at the present. Here’s Location, Location, Location’s Kirstie Allsopp rummaging through roadside rubbish skips for stuff to furnish her new cottage in Devon.

It’s all part of her plan to turn the dilapidated property, which hasn’t been lived in for 20 years, bought at auction into a real home-made home. A blank canvas to create her own dream interiors, as she puts it.

Unfortunately, those of us who fantasise about Kirstie swinging a sledgehammer – she couldn’t wait to start knocking down walls in her previous programme – will be disappointed, although the sight of Kirstie blowing glass is some compensation.

The cottage itself barely gets a look in this week as she tries out, not only glassblowing, but also the potter’s wheel and sewing cushions. Watching Kirstie sew is not, I would suggest, riveting television.

And there’s searching skips, but remember to ask the person who threw the stuff away if you can have it. Otherwise it’s called stealing.

All this is vaguely informative with Kirstie offering words of wisdom along the lines of “one person’s old tat is another person’s pot of gold”.

It’s just that I don’t buy the idea of her subscribing to a second-hand lifestyle.