"In animal-loving Britain, not all humans are as exasperated as Howard, whose daughter’s chickens keep getting slaughtered: Alan and June put out chicken livers for Miss Fox and her family while secretly filming them from cameras hidden in plant pots. They’ve obviously never witnessed the needless and wanton destruction a single fox can wreak on a killing spree." - Patricia Wynn Davies writing in the Telegraph TV review section

And Ms Wynn Davies obviously has no real understanding of animal behaviour. The way that foxes survive in the wild is to kill as much as they can in times of plenty, and bury it as a larder for use in leaner times. What seems superficially like a senseless orgy of destruction is in fact a useful survival strategy in the wild - but not for urban foxes, who haven't had time to evolve a new strategy that accounts for the existence of confined prey that cannot escape and is the property of vengeful humans!

A shame that she didn't bother to do just a little bit of research before committing pen to paper - but as hardly anyone seems to worry about getting their facts right these days, perhaps not very surprising. And how much more satisfying for those of limited attention span to read more sensational descriptions

For a welcome change - a bouquet rather than a brickbat for TV.

Last night saw the final episode of "Life on Mars" on BBC1 - apart from a bit too much talking to white noise on the radio, a thoroughly satisfying conclusion to a gripping drama that dared to be a bit different from all the common formulae today. To someone who remembers the 70s first-hand, the period detail was very evocative, and the use of the storyline to compare past and present attitudes was, I thought, very telling. Like Sam, I can't help thinking that we have gone too far the other way in our relentlessly PC and safety-obsessed age.

(Perhaps it should be made compulsory viewing for all those bleating about reparations and apologies for slavery: the past is indeed another country that we can never revisit, except in memories.)

And a belated pat on the back for Channel 4 too. Remember that once upon a time they used to rival BBC2 (as it was then) for programmes that covered serious subjects? Well, on Easter Monday, we had quite a treat: a documentary about how English translations of the Bible affected English history and literature. Presented by Rod Liddle, it was an intelligent look at what might seem a dry subject, but was in fact full of interest.

Only marred by pointless out-of-focus wobblycam reconstructions - do they really think that the people who find this topic of interest will be impressed by such cheap fillers? Better the shorten the prog. by 30 minutes and "leave it aht", as Arthur Daley used to say.