SCOT SQUAD, BBC1, 10.40pm
HERE are the Scottish police “punching in for another shift of sticking the head on crime”.
They encounter a young man who claims to have bought his house with cash and so doesn’t think he should have to pay his gas bill. Didn’t gas come with the house?
But how could he afford to pay cash for a house, the police ask? He invented a Tinder app for dogs. The polis are puzzled: “Surely the benefit of being a dug is ye can shag anything?”
And there’s mockery of The Scottish Resistance who once marched into Rutherglen police station to demand the arrest of David Cameron – and who’re a furious embarrassment to the Yes movement. We see a bunch of oddballs who call themselves the Commissariat of the Vigour of Alba and they’re reporting crimes against Scottish culture by Gerard Butler’s accent. And whilst they’re at it, they also demand the extradition of Russ Abbott.
JAMES MAY: THE REASSEMBLER, BBC4, 9pm
THE trend for “slow food” was a welcome one, making us stop and think about where our food comes from, and what exactly goes into it. I’ll bet there were young people surprised to learn that a cake is made from eggs, flour, sugar and a slab of butter. Surely cakes just ping into being on a supermarket shelf, neatly wrapped in cellophane?
It’s good to dismantle things down into their individual components so you can appreciate them and learn how they work. This applies to Angel Cake as well as gadgets.
In this series, James May has been applying the “slow food” idea to machines, taking them apart to see how they operate and then patching them all back together like a vast mechanical jigsaw. It’s strangely satisfying to watch.
In the final episode tonight he assembles a 60s record player, the Dansette Bermuda, which “helped give birth to the teenager”.
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