Last night's TV

Paul Merton in India was surreal - filled with planes that don't fly and naked cameramen
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Paul Merton in India
'Paul Merton in a collapsible panama has a disconcerting look of Benny Hill' ... Photograph: Channel Five

I am glued to TV news like Garfield to a car window. Reporters shout "Guv'nor!" like street urchins as the governor of the Bank of England waddles into Downing Street. Which is, itself, surrounded by scaffolding, as though the foundations were shaking. The business editor of the BBC, who has blushed unseen for years, is suddenly out of his bottle and enormous. Iceland melts and the air is filled with the sound of pips squeaking.

I didn't really want to join Paul Merton in India (Five) and Griff Rhys Jones in Greatest Cities of the World (ITV1). I like it here.

Paul Merton in a collapsible panama has a disconcerting look of Benny Hill. He is bigger man than you expect, and seems to be deliberately sent to places where he looks bigger still. He was either in India or some surreal India of the imagination. As he doesn't like religion, rats or flying, the first episode, naturally, included the lot.

Particularly endearing was Mr Gupta and his Amazing Flying Machine. Mr Gupta had bought a dilapidated plane, dismantled it ("I chopped it into pieces then joined the pieces back") and reassembled it in his back garden. With him in the cockpit and his wife in the cabin, their customers could enjoy all the excitement of flying (Mr Gupta: "We are going to belly land on the water! Use your lifejackets!" Mrs Gupta: "Don't panic! Don't panic!" Mr Gupta: "Save yourselves!") - without the inconvenience of dying. Or, indeed, leaving the ground. Mr Gupta said he did it because it made him happy and made his passengers happy. Paul's arse-over-tip escape down the emergency chute made everyone happy. It got a spontaneous round of applause from the other passengers and will amuse generations yet unborn.

It all ended with a five-day celebration of Shiva's wedding. One can only say an uproariously good time was had by all, including Paul Merton, who joined an ashram where residents wore, appropriately enough, nothing but ashes. A certain latitude was allowed. One devotee wore Miss Marple's hat and, at some hazy point in the celebrations, Merton borrowed it. The sect showed their devotion to Shiva by, as Merton put it, doing tricks with their dicks and hanging rocks from their cocks. This presented the cameraman with a delicate quandary. He finally threw in the towel and took off his clothes, too. The devotees asked Merton what he did for a living, and seemed delighted with the answer. The word "comedian" rippled appreciatively around the naked circle. Merton looked relieved. They hadn't asked him to make them laugh. They seemed sublimely happy already.

Meanwhile, in Greatest Cities of the World (ITV1), Griff Rhys Jones showed great economy by abseiling down a New York skyscraper. He had used precisely the same shot, with added profanity, in his series on anger. The Empire State building, as he mentioned, was built during the great depression. It features in a song of the time.

Once I built a tower to the sun Bricks and mortar and lime
Once I built a tower, now it's done
Brother, can you spare a dime

The trouble with stockpiling TV programmes is that they pass their sell-by date. Griff never mentioned a spot of bother on the stock exchange. Or a quicker way of descending a skyscraper.

There will soon, you feel, be fewer takers for the $7,000-a-night suite at The Carlyle and more diners at the $2 hot-dog stand outside the Museum of Modern Art.

On Broadway he met two great dames slapping on the greasepaint and whacking the conversation to and fro like the Williams sisters in a Wimbledon final. He mentioned badinage. "What is badinage?" shrieked one. "A little chat between the two of you," murmured Griff.

"I thought it was some kind of hygienic cleansing," shrieked the other.

His theme was the New York melting pot. It is never more obvious than in the credits of any American TV show. So put your hands together for Damon Bundschum, Silva Santamaria, Andrew Hassenruck and (how did she get in here?) Rosemary Plum. Dear Rosemary Plum, Somerset misses you.

There was a time you could go to the Arctic and fight a polar bear singlehanded, as Nelson is said to have done when he was only 16. (He had two hands then, of course.) Or you could be eaten by a polar bear, like Sir John Franklin. Lady Franklin, a bit of a looker like Helen of Troy, launched 30 ships to find him. Their enthusiasm went off the boil a bit when one expedition discovered that Franklin's expedition, lost, dying and disorientated, also ate each other.

Now the polar bear is swimming for its life. There is talk of drilling for oil, gas and gold in the Arctic where, quite recently, it was so quiet you could hear your heart beat. Wilderness Explored (BBC4) was like a wonderful story that ends unhappily ever after.

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